Thursday, November 30, 2006

Sikhism, the world’s fifth-largest organized religion, has more than 20 million followers. Many thousands live in New York City. We can spot Sikh men on the street by their turbans and upswept moustaches. And many of us will recall that two decades ago Sikhs were at the center of the news when the Indian Army stormed the Golden Temple at Amritsar, killing hundreds of Sikhs, and the brutal campaign of oppression against the ethnic minority group which followed.

But what about Sikhism itself? Few Westerners have even basic information.

How many people are aware that it was conceived as a universalist, open-door religion?

Or that its view of society was radically egalitarian? Or that the Adi Granth, far from being full of sectarian dos and don’ts, is a bouquet of poetic songs, blending the fragrances of Hindu ragas, Muslim hymns and Punjabi folk tunes into a music of spiritual astonishment?

This is precisely the information delivered by the small and absolutely beautiful show titled “I See No Stranger: Early Sikh Art and Devotion” at the Rubin Museum of Art in Chelsea. Vivid but concentrated, it presents, mostly through paintings, a culture’s version of its own origins, the image of history shaped by hard work, pluralistic politics and mysticism.

Sikhism was founded at the end of the 15th century in northern India, when a young boy named Nanak had a Revelation. It led him to believe that God was a formless spiritual force shared by all religions, and that social ranks based on faith, class, caste, gender or race were illusory. Unity was reality. The Other was just another. “I see no stranger, I see no enemy, I look upon all with good will,” is how Sikhi phrases it.

Eager to share His vision, Guru Nanak took to the road, accompanied by a Muslim musician named Mardana, who played the stringed instrument called a rabab. Together they traveled, according to official accounts of Guru Nanak’s life, from Sri Lanka to Afghanistan, and west to Baghdad and Mecca, composing and singing devotional songs as they went.

They lived at a high devotional moment. The mystical brand of Islam called Sufism was in full flower, as was the corresponding Bhakti movement on Hinduism. Saints of all sorts and sects wandered northern India, bumping into one another, filling the subcontinent with love. Orthodox thinking was turned inside out. Hierarchies were up-ended. Students taught and teachers learned. The name Sikh — pronounced 'sik' with an enunciated H at the end — comes from a Sanskrit word for 'disciple'.

The exhibition, organized by the art historian B. N. Goswamy of Panjab University, and Caron Smith, chief curator of the Rubin Museum, conveys something of the flavor of all this through dozens of miniature paintings in Hindu and Mughal court styles illustrating the life of Guru Nanak Dev Ji Maharaj as He came to be called. In them He emerges as a figure of commonsensical wit, unassuming piety, superhuman power and increasing physical bulk.

He’s a trim, soft-faced schoolboy in one 18th-century painting, standing in class and holding out a writing board — it looks like a boxy camera — to a teacher. Already by this time Guru Nanak has been lecturing His parents on the Bhagavad-Gita and writing metaphysical verse. Some of these poems, we are meant to assume, are on the writing board. And we know his confounded teacher will give him an A for Amazing.

Another picture shows the adult Guru Nanak asleep on the floor of a mosque in Mecca, with his feet pointed, in a scandalous breach of religious etiquette, toward the Kaaba, God’s house, the holy of holies. When an outraged mullah tries to drag Him around into reverse position, the Kaaba turns too. The lesson: no direction is unhallowed, because God is everywhere.

In a third painting, Guru Nanak, now in stout middle age sits with his book of hymns under a tree. Mardana, tuning up nearby, stares off at the sky. From the left a princely figure, stiff-backed and poker-faced, approaches on horseback to pay homage. Clearly the meeting is a significant one, but nobody seems very into it, or even aware that anyone else is there.

The painting is paired in the show with the workshop drawing, produced by a master artist, that served as its model. The contrast is striking. In the drawing the prince, far from being restrained, practically levitates from his saddle with ardor and leans toward Guru Nanak as if drawn to a magnet. Mardana plays and sings with fervor. It is in the drawing, rather than in the painting, that the Guru Nanak Effect, so evident in poems and songs, comes through.

The Soul-Light of Guru Nanak took nine other forms, and each built on what He had begun. The fourth, Guru Ram Das, established Amritsar as the pre-eminent Sikh pilgrimage site. The next, Guru Arjan Dev, completed the Golden Temple there, built on a platform in the center of a sacred pool. He compiled Guru Nanak’s beautiful poetry, along with others by Hindu and Muslim saints, to create the Ad Granth.

Up to this point, at the very beginning of the 17th century, Sikh history had been peaceful enough despite internal frictions. The site of Amritsar was a gift outright from the Mughal emperor, Akbar, a spiritual seeker and social philosopher who ruled much of India and was admiring of Sikhism’s multicultural character. But after Akbar’s death, rapport with the Mughals disintegrated.

In 1606 his son, Jahangir, an observant Muslim, imprisoned and ordered the martyrdom of Guru Arjan Dev. When the next Guru was also jailed, the Sikhs adopted a stance of defensive militarism and a new social ideal: the soldier-saint. The 10th Guru Govind Singh, formalized this collective identity in 1699 when he established Sikh initiation and codified a the symbols and physical identity.

Guru Govind Singh also took the crucial step of designating the Divine Hymns enshrined in the Adi Granth, as the next, last, and eternal Guru, under the honorific title of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji Maharaj. Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji has incalculable charisma, a sentient being, enthroned on cushions, swathed in rich fabrics, and handled with tender, punctilious deference. Reciting or singing from Guru Sahib is the defining act of the Sikh worship. So intense is Guru Ji's sanctity that, while a throne has been prepared for Guru Ji in the show, Guru Granth Sahib remains physically absent.

Absence can of course have a presence of its own, as modern Sikh history does in this exhibition. An earlier show, “The Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms,” organized in London in 1999, focused on Sikhism from the British colonial period onward, tracing the entwined political and religious developments that led to, among other things, the calamities of 1984 in India.

The Rubin Museum has late material too, including a splendid set of British-influenced 19th-century drawings of craftsmen at work, and a series of formal portraits of Sikh warrior-chiefs.

All-apparent, are the poetry and music that pervade and orchestrate the Sikh view of the world. Traditional hymns play softly in the gallery. A rabab is on display. Certain paintings have the gentle, doleful lilt of evening ragas; others jump and twitch with a beat. And running through everything, like the harmonium’s beginningless-endless voice, are the words of Gurbani:

Wonderful is sound

Wonderful is wisdom

Wonderful is life

Wonderful its distinctions

Wonderful is praise

Wonderful is eulogy

Wonderful the Presence

One sees in the present

O wonder-struck am I to see wonder upon wonder.

“I See No Stranger: Early Sikh Art and Devotion” remains at the Rubin Museum of Art, 150 West 17th Street, Chelsea, (212) 620-5000, through Jan. 29.

Arab philosophy is the theme of the first class in the course 'Panorama of Arab Culture', which will approach many aspects of the Arab world, like history, current affairs and influences in the West. The philosophy doctor by the University of São Paulo, Miguel Attie, is going to present an historic account of the Arab philosophers of ancient times.

The course is promoted by the Institute of Arab Culture (Icarabe) and has duration of three months. Classes start today (18) and will be held every Monday at the Arab Chamber Space, in São Paulo.

According to the coordinator of today's class, Safa Jubran, who is a professor of Arab literature and language at USP, Attie will present an historic account of Arab philosophers of ancient times, making links to Greek philosophy. He plans on showing also that the philosophical thinking and culture of the West were influenced by the Arabs, like he related in his book "Falsafa - Philosophy Amongst the Arabs".

As well as Attie's class, Safa will also coordinate the ninth lesson, on contemporary Arab poetry, taught by the USP professor, Michel Sleiman, and the eleventh class, on Arab immigration and culture in the novel "The Brothers", by Milton Hatoum, which she translated to Arabic. "As coordinator I will introduce the professors and raise some questions on the theme discussed in class," said Safa.

The course will have three main themes: the Arabs contribution to knowledge, the history and current affairs of the Arab world and the cultural repercussions of the Arabs. According to the president of the Icarabe, Soraya Smaili, there is demand of people interested in knowing more about the Arab world, therefore the institute decided to set up the course. About 80 people are enrolled to participate and there are no more open positions.

The next class of the course will be held on the 25th and will be on Arab philosophers. It will be divided in two parts: "Arabs and Mathematics" and "Arab Philosophers and Sufism". Coordinated by the USP professor, Francisco Miraglia, the first lecture will be by the USP professor Oscar Abdounour and, the second, by Sylvia Leite, also from USP.

Other themesThe course will have 13 classes in all, of two and a half hours each. As well as Arab philosophy, the classes will approach themes like sciences, chemistry, literature, poetry, dance, music, art and architecture, the history of the Crusades, nationalism of the twentieth century, disqualification of Arab culture and its ideological role.

The Icarabe has the aim of promoting Arab culture in all its historic, social and humanist aspects. Since the beginning of its activities, in 2004, the institute already held many lectures, debates and photography exhibits.

In many parts of the Muslim world, traditional Muslims are more successful than liberal Muslims in offering an alternative to radical Islam.

In a recent talk at the Singapore-based Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, the Malaysian scholar of Islam, Dr Farish Noor, painted an unencouraging picture of the future of Islam in Southeast Asia. He argued that liberal Muslim groups in the region such as Malaysia’s Sisters in Islam (SIS) and Indonesia’s Liberal Islam Network (JIL) were obsolete, and that the Muslim ground has shifted towards the Islamists. These views, expressed by someone deemed as a liberal himself, deserve closer scrutiny.

Failure of liberal Muslim groupsLiberal Muslim groups grew in prominence against the backdrop of the growing influence of radical Islamists. Liberal Muslim groups postured themselves as alternative voices of Islam, which are moderate, intellectual and acceptable to the West. However, recent trends in Southeast Asia have shown the failure of these groups. Most Indonesians and Malaysian Muslims shun their perspectives due to the liberals’ perceived heretical views and beliefs. For instance, the action by Muslim feminist Amina Wadud to lead a Friday prayer congregation of over 100 men and women in the Episcopal cathedral of St John the Divine and the support she received from liberal groups in the region drew a public outcry from Muslims all around the world. While the Muslim masses may not necessarily reject some of the views of the liberals such as on the separation of state and religion, these issues are lost as the Muslim masses focus their attention instead on the liberals’ supposed heretical beliefs.

Another often-heard criticism of the liberals is that they are in cahoots with Western governments to destroy Islam. The financial support they receive from Western governments and funding agencies further strengthen this perception. In addition, liberal groups confine themselves to organizing seminars and conferences catering to scholars and liberal activists, which have little or no impact on the larger Muslim populace. They have also been unable to build up grassroots networks. This can be contrasted with the highly networked and connected radical Islamist groups with their extensive range of social services. At the same time, the failure of the liberals to react appropriately to contemporary developments affecting the Muslim World has tainted their image further. Farish Noor highlighted the reluctance of liberal groups to condemn Western governments for their policies in the Middle East as an example of the failure of these groups to understand the Muslim ground.

The attention Western government and media give to these groups seems to indicate that liberal Islam is seen as a potential resource for cushioning the Muslim world from its more militant and fundamentalist interpreters. The West has unfortunately placed its stakes with the wrong groups. The question one should then ask is whether the Muslim world has been lost to the radical Islamists. Perhaps not.

Traditional Islam as an antidote to radical ideasIn many parts of the Muslim World today, groups of moderate scholars and activists are working the ground to educate Muslims against the dangers of radicalism. They are promoting a brand of Islam that many Muslims have forgotten due to the effects of the legalistic interpretation of Islam. This brand of Islam is “traditional Islam.” As early as 1987, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a leading traditional Muslim scholar proposed that traditional Islam could be a remedy to the challenge of Muslim extremism. Traditional Islam loosely defined is the understanding of Islam in terms of creed (aqidah), jurisprudence (fiqh) and self-purification (tasawwuf), that has been adhered to by the overwhelming majority of not only Muslim scholars, but Muslims in general.

Traditional Islam entails recognizing that Islam is a living tradition that has been faithfully transmitted to each succeeding generation. Traditional Muslims practice many distinct versions of spirituality called "remembrance of God," or “zikr,” which may involve prayer, chanting or silent meditation. At the same time, they emphasize the importance of the “Sunnah” (practices of the Prophet). One of the strongest manifestations of traditional Islam is Sufism. Traditional Muslims do not perceive Islamic tradition as being conservative and cast in stone. While they regard the principles of Islam as permanent and enduring, they see Islamic tradition as fluid and changing such that it can accommodate changes in a society. Traditional Muslims have however been wrongly criticized as heretical by radical Islamists, especially by the Wahhabis. Yet despite these criticisms, traditional Muslims have proven their resilience to withstand such attacks and continue to represent the silent majority of Muslims. Since 9/11, traditional Muslims all round the world have ceased to remain silent and are working the ground to counter the threat of radical Islamists.

Unlike liberal Islamic groups, traditional Muslim groups have strong grassroots support through their network of mosques, neighborhood clinics, schools and charitable services. At the same time, others are involved in organizing conferences and seminars as well as writing books to teach the Muslim masses about Islam and counter extremist thoughts that have been dominating Muslim public discourse. They are also not averse to the West and emphasize the need for mutual respect, interaction, and cooperation between Muslims and the West.

The ‘middle way’ projectIn the United Kingdom, traditional Muslims have come together to initiate The Radical Middle Way project. The project seeks to combat ignorance by spreading and empowering arguments for the ‘middle way’ and by the consolidation of the mainstream Muslim community. In doing so, traditional Muslim scholars have gone to the grassroots level to organize talks, seminars and other activities to educate British Muslim youth the correct understanding of Islam. Perhaps, their greatest achievement is in their ability to counter the viewpoints of radical Muslim groups in the UK such as the Al-Muhajiroun and in some cases even convincing members of this group to adopt a more moderate stance.

In Singapore, it is also traditional Muslim scholars such as Ustaz Ali Mohamed, chairman of Khadijah mosque and Ustaz Tengku Fouzy, an increasingly popular Muslim Sufi scholar, who are in the forefront of various efforts at countering radical Islamist ideology. Besides being involved in the Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG), a group set up to reform the Jemaah Islamiyah detainees, they have also been involved in various public forums and lectures to educate the Muslim populace on a wide array of issues such as the concept of jihad, terrorism and the recent Arab-Israeli conflict. Their message is a simple one - Islam does not condone violence and one has to use “hikmah” (which refers to the highest possible level of wisdom by a Muslim) in making decisions. Efforts by activists of mosques such as the Abdul Aleem Siddiqui mosque, which is closely linked to traditional Islam, to organize talks and conferences catered to the younger segment of the Muslim populace is commendable. The attendance of large numbers of young Muslims at the recent Second International Conference on Islamic Spirituality organized by the mosque reflect the ability of the traditional Muslim activists to galvanize and subsequently influence younger Muslims to adopt a less legalistic and more pluralistic form of Islam.

In the broader context, the pluralism and moderation of traditional Islam may indeed play a significant role in the ongoing transformation of the Muslim world. In the ummah-wide struggle for the soul of the religion, and for the restoration of pluralistic Muslim thought, traditional Islam seems to offer an alternative. To ensure that this struggle is not won by the extremists, it is important that support and attention be given to the efforts of traditional Muslims and that governments seek the advice of traditional Muslims scholars in formulating their policies on Islam.

While the Pope is being forced to apologize to the Islamic community, let’s not ignore the news sent from Rome by Yasemin Taskin of the “Sabah” newspaper. Published under the title, “The Vatican’s striking report on Turkey: There’s no secularism in Turkey,” the text of the news in the newspaper is very different from the copy on the Internet. I’ll refer to the Internet copy because it’s more comprehensive.

(...)

There are other interesting details in the report and they hint that the Pope approached his visit to Turkey more as a statesman than as a spiritual leader.

“Although Turkey expelled Islam from the political realm, it sprouted in civil society. Turgut Ozal’s being brought to power from Sufi circles with the approval of the military and America also took place in this period. Within political Islam and with Sufi leanings, the ruling JDP takes its place as a movement different from the Arabs’ understanding of political Islam. Describing itself as democratic and pro-Western, the JDP is creating an interesting political experiment. Hated by the Arabs, the “Christian” West can establish a dialogue with this party. The West can create a common area with the JDP based on great political themes. Islam fundamentalists see the Turkish model as its greatest enemy. It can be understood that they would like to end this (JDP) experiment with the bomb power. There’s a great probability that there will be followers of the Erdogan model outside of Turkey. This is extremely dangerous for those who don’t want dialogue between the Islamic world and the West.”

Let’s not ask the question, “How can a state report be leaked to the outside?” Maybe that’s one of the calculated moves.

The important thing is which square Turkey occupies on the chessboard and which figure it represents; let’s think about this a little.

This report is submitted to the Congress by the Department of State in compliance with Section 102(b) of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998. The law provides that the secretary of state, with the assistance of the ambassador at large for international religious freedom, shall transmit to Congress "an Annual Report on International Religious Freedom supplementing the most recent Human Rights Reports by providing additional detailed information with respect to matters involving international religious freedom."

Iran: The constitution declares the "official religion of Iran is Islam, and the doctrine followed is that of Ja'fari (Twelver) Shi'ism." The Government restricts freedom of religion.

There was a further deterioration of the extremely poor status of respect for religious freedom during the reporting period, most notably for Baha'is and Sufi Muslims. The country's religious minorities include Sunni and Sufi Muslims, Baha'is, Zoroastrians, Jews, and Christians. There were reports of imprisonment, harassment, intimidation, and discrimination based on religious beliefs.

Government actions and rhetoric created a threatening atmosphere for nearly all religious minorities, especially Baha'is and Sufi Muslims. To a lesser extent, Zoroastrians, evangelical Christians, and the small Jewish community were also targets of government harassment. Government-controlled media, including broadcasting and print, intensified negative campaigns against religious minorities – particularly the Baha'is – following the June 2005 election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The U.S. government makes clear its objections to the Government's harsh and oppressive treatment of religious minorities through public statements, support for relevant U.N. and nongovernmental organization (NGO) efforts, as well as diplomatic initiatives towards states where religious freedom is a concern. Since 1999 the Secretary of State has designated Iran as a "Country of Particular Concern" (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act for its particularly egregious violations of religious freedom.

The country has an area of approximately 631,660 square miles, and its population was an estimated 69 million. The population was approximately 98 percent Muslim, of which an estimated 89 percent were Shi'a and 8 percent were Sunni, mostly Turkmen, Arabs, Baluchs, and Kurds living in the southwest, southeast, and northwest. Although there are no official statistics of the size of the Sufi Muslim population, some reports estimated between two to five million people practice Sufism compared to approximately 100,000 before 1979.

Sufi Muslims faced an increasing "demonization" campaign. In September 2005, Ayatollah Hossein Nouri-Hamedani, as Islamic scholar in Qom, reportedly called for a crackdown on Sufi groups, labeling them a "danger to Islam".

Five months later an attack occurred that involved police and paramilitary forces. During the riots, the paramilitaries distributed leaflets calling Sufis enemies of Islam, and the Qom governor accused the Sufis of having ties to foreign countries and creating instability.

Articles attacking Sufis were printed in government-controlled, national newspapers, such as the Jomhouri-ye Eslami and Kayhan. On February 14, 2006, a Kayhan article quoted senior clerics in Qom as saying that Sufism should be eradicated in the city. During the period covered by this report, several anti-Sufi books were published.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Thousands of people gathered on the occasion of first death anniversary of prominent and well known Sufi singer Ghulam Ahmad Sofi who was famous throughout his life for reciting great poetry of Sufi saints of Jammu and Kashmir state.

The function was organized by the Department of Information and Public Relations at Rainawari near his ancestral grave yard. The poetic life history in a artistic description was engraved by the cultural academy on his grave. Amidst Fateh-e-Khani by large number of people.

The Director Information and Public Relations on this occasion said that Sofi who was known for reciting Sufiyana poetry ‘Shashrang’ of Sofi poet, poetry of ‘Suchkral, Shamsfaquir, Naimasahib’ who all belonged to ‘Sharakhas’ historically known as city of seven bridges. He said that vicinity of all seven bridges gave birth to great scholar saints and intellectuals, philosophers and persons of prominence.

He said that it is better that this city is termed with its original name Sharakhas in order to paid tributes to all those who belonged to this place. The people who were present on the occasion appreciated poetic verses of Zarief Ahmed which were inscribed by the cultural academy on a special stone near the grave of Sofi singer. He said that he was a employee of Information Department for long period.

The presence of large number of people from 4 O’ clock till mid night was clear indication of the popularity of great saint. The organizers of Sofi Saint Committee appreciated role of Information and Public Relations department for highlighting Sufiyana poetry and contribution of great Sufiyana saints whose poetry is getting new prominence in the State.

The Department of Information and Public Relations had continuously during last two years organized in all parts of J&K State. Thousands of Sufiyana, mehfils even Sofiana festival up to the level of India and Pakistan was organized in SKICC, Varmul, Pahalgam where great and reputed Sufiana singers of two countries participated. The 20,000 lovers of Sufiyana participated in 3-day festival. The highest gathering of the people to the extent of 45,000 people was witnessed at Narwara on the occasion of Ahad Zargar Day organized by Information Department.

Similarly, at Danamazar at Safakadal, 15000 to 20000 people participated in Rahmandars death anniversary. Large gathering were also witnessed at Hazrat Bul-Bul-Shah shrine, Rehaman Memorial Day Jamalata, Nayama Sahib Day at Habbakadal, Lala Sahib Day at Bandipora and thousands of such occasions in J&K and Ladakh which were organized by the department.

All the speakers while speaking on Sofi memorial day today said that the presence of such a large gathering on this day when Sofi singer is being remembered is clear proof that Sofi poetry is touching new dimensions of popularity in the State.

Clothed in wide, white skirt-robes and camel-haired cylindrical headdresses representing the gravestone and the shroud of the human ego, the Dervishes stand and prepare to whirl, their eyes closed, minds transfixed.

Ottoman court music of flutes, string and percussion play in the background as the costumed men begin their tightly structured mystical trance. As they start to spin in circles, their arms unfold; the right arm lifts towards God and the skies while the left arm turns toward the earth. The ritualistic whirling dance can last hours.

This seven-century-old ceremony performed by the Mevlevi Order of Turkey (known in the West as the Whirling Dervishes) is one of the most exquisite spiritual rituals performed in the world today. The highly choreographed ritual, known as Sema, is so complex and perplexing that it has been widely studied in the dance, religion and culture fields of academia.

For one evening only, inquisitive Twin Citians of any faith and cultural background will have the opportunity to witness this sacred ritual performed at the University's Ted Mann Concert Hall.

The inspiration for the ritual is based on a scientifically recognized condition: The fundamental purpose of existence is to revolve, and that every object and living being is interconnected through a cycle of revolution. Blood circulates in the body. Planets follow orbits. And humans and beasts are born of the earth only to live, die and return to it. Revolution is the ultimate worldly process.

The Dervishes seek to consciously engage in the shared revolution of all beings through their spinning movements. They slip into a trancelike state, evoking a spiritual ascent into a shared consciousness with God.

The Whirling Dervishes of Turkey are Sufi Muslims, and throughout the centuries they have widely contributed to Turkish customs, history and culture.

Founded by 13th-century philosopher and poet Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, Sufism is a moderate branch of Islam. Through the teachings of Rumi and the Quran, its followers seek to promote universal values of justice while seeking a direct experience with God and an ultimate reality.

It isn't every day that such a world-renowned ceremony is performed here in the Twin Cities. The Mevlevi Order has been performing in Europe and North America since only the 1970s. Based in Rumi's hometown of Konya, Turkey, the Dervishes travel the world only sporadically, performing the Sema to audiences numbering in the thousands.

The performance is sponsored by the Northern Lights Society, a local nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting interfaith dialogue, understanding and tolerance through social interaction and the exchange of ideas. Yasir Bilgin, the interfaith dialogue coordinator for the Northern Lights Society, stressed the importance of such performances that unite people across the religious spectrum, especially in turbulent times when common ground can be hard to find.

The Whirling Dervishes represent more than just an intricate ceremony of spiritual devotion. They are symbolic of universal, humanistic ideals - such as peace, love and tolerance.

Sufi music concerts may run to packed houses, but many sufi shrines present a contrasting picture.

It is ironic that while so many people are enchanted by the music, few know about the Awliyas (Sufi saints) who find considerable mention in it, connoisseurs of Sufism say. Delhi is dotted with historic monuments including scores of 'mazaars'. There is the famous dargah of Nizamuddin and lesser-known mazaars of Bakhtiyar Kaki and Naseeruddin Mahmud Chiragh that co-exist. The latter two present a picture of neglect, they say.

There are still others, which are maintained by people who live around them oblivious of their history. "Chiragh's dargah has borne the brunt of urban living. Post-partition, ignorant settlers in the area marginalised the dargah. Today, it's in a poor state," says Sunil Kumar, Reader, Department of History, Delhi University. "Bakhtiyar Kaki's tomb is in no better condition, he says. Known as Roshan 'Chirag-e-Dehli' - the illuminated lamp of Delhi, Chirag's name finds mention in many sufi renditions.

"In many places, the locals who maintain the 'mazaars' do not even know the name of the saint who is buried there, except for some miracles which are attributed to the saint," says Kumar.

On the other hand, there are also some shrines maintained by locals which witness regular prayer sessions; they are found to be in a good condition. Sufi dargahs are visited by both hindus and muslims: the maintenance of such mazaars and dargahs can be attributed to the intiatives of the local people.

"Most of Delhi's sufi shrines are tended by locals who stay in the vicinity. The absence of any governmental incentive doesn't deter them, because they see some mystic value in medieval shrines," says medieval historian SZH Jafferi of Delhi University.

The government should come forward and take affirmative steps for the restoration of these shrines, he says.

Delhiites need to be made aware of aspects of Sufism other than just the music. There is a lot more to the religion that can delight followers. For starters, Sufism welcomes into its fold, people of any caste, creed or religion, he says.

The need for preserving Delhi's Sufi historical wealth needs to be realised fast lest many symbols of the city's glorious past should fade away into oblivion, historians say.

Jiya dhadak (Kalyug), Ya Ali (Gangster), Chaand sifaarish (Fanaa) and Mitwa (KANK)... And if you thought that was all, Nagesh Kukunoor’s next, Dor, has a winner in the making with Allah hoo. Another musical, Zindaggi Rocks, has Sufi-meets-rock in one of the album’s racy and already popular songs Rabbi. Sufi music has entered mainstream.

Sufism is a mystic tradition of Islam and songs based on Sufi themes are perennial chart favourites, lingering on long after others have faded away. Remember Chaiyya Chaiyya (Dil Se)? Based on Bulleh Shah’s Tere ishq ne nachaya kar thaiyya thaiyya, the song is not merely remembered for Malaika Arora Khan and Shah Rukh Khan’s gyrations atop a moving train, but also made an overnight star of the singer, Sukhwinder.

And then there is Al lah ke bande (Waisa Bhi Hota Hai - II), that made Kailash Kher a household name. And the latest Sufi sensation, singer Rabbi Sher gill, is all set to debut as a music director with Delhi Heights later this year. So what makes the Sufi strain so sought-after in Bollywood?

Music director Anu Malik (who prefers to call himself Aanuu these days), the man behind Rabbi, pegs his Mehboob Mere track in Fiza as a take off point for experimentation of Sufi music in recent times. “I’ve again given Sufi a current connect by fusing rock essentials with the Sufiana andaz in Rabbi.” But Sufi music made inroads long before Fiza (2001), with the AR Rahman-composed Dil Se (1998) and Taal (1999). And it took off from the Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan-wave that ruled the charts in the mid-90s.

However, of late, songs with Sufi influences have become de rigueur in almost every film being released these days, irrespective of the genre, whether it is a romantic Gangster or a cerebral Corporate. “Sufi is in the DNA of the Indian sub-continent,” says producer Mukesh Bhatt, whose Vishesh Films has at least one Sufi number in most films since Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s chartbuster, Mann ki lagan (Paap). “The essence of a Sufi song can be brought out only by a Sufi singer though good lyrics are essential,” he says.

So what makes Sufi rock? “Sufi songs equate the love of God to that of the beloved. And as a theme song in the background at a poignant moment, it takes the music to a phenomenal level,” says Mukesh. Adds Kailash, “Sufi songs have a universal appeal as they are intense love songs. The lyrics are traditional, but my sound appeals mainly to the 20-30 age group.” As Anu says, “If you can make it groove-worthy keeping intact its lyrical core, the result rocks.” It sure does.

The land of Kathak would be a witness to the three flavours of dance- contemporary, classic, sufi- coming together, as the Rashtriya Kathak Sansthan’s annual programme, Virasat, would be held on September 22, 23 and 24. The programme would feature the likes of choreographer and contemporary kathak dancer Madhu Natraj Hery matching her skills with traditionalist like Shovana Narain and TV actress and Kathak dancer, Prachee Shah.

Giving details about the programme, the secretary of the Sansthan, Sarita Srivastava, said the programme, for the first time, will bring together three facets of Kathak. ‘‘Traditional kathak has always been favoured by everyone as this dance form, which started from the temples, still gets a lot of patronage. Then, slowly it took on a sufi form and now, it is undergoing a metamorphosis, thanks to the experimentation being done on it. So we would be showcasing all these three forms.”

The three-day function will feature popular TV actress Prachee Shah presenting traditional kathak of the Jaipur gharana. Along with Shah, bureaucrat and dancer Shovana Narain would be presenting the sufi form of kathak. The contemporary form of dance with various other forms fused in would be presented by Madhu Natraj Hery from Bangalore.

The sansthan would also be giving a chance to budding dancers from Lucknow all the three days. While the traditional presentation is being choreographed by Akansha Srivastava and Ishani Agarwal, the sufi dance presentation would be choreographed by Archana Tiwari and Gunjal Dikshit. Gaurav Sharma would be choreographing the contemporary dance piece.

The golden dusty sand dunes, colorful ethnic outfits, soulful folk music mixed with competent performances makes way for Nagesh Kukunoor's 'Dor'. Fresh from the spectacular success of 'Iqbal', the talented director forays into land of ethnic and beautiful Rajasthan in 'Dor'.

Once again it will be successful combo of actor Shreya Talpade and director Nagesh Kukunoor in 'Dor' with Ayesha Takia and Gul Panag in lead roles. 'Dor' is a women-oriented film that shows the deglamourized Ayesha Takia as village belle whereas Gul Panag will don urbanized character. The trendy music composer duo Salim-Suleiman unravels their unexplored music prowess in this album by delivering brilliant Indian classical music. Salim-Suleiman did a splendid job in 'Iqbal' with chartbuster tracks "Aankhon Mein Sapna" and "Aashayein" and promises another competent show in 'Dor'.

Actor Shreyas Talpade's debut performance of deaf-mute boy in 'Iqbal' won him accolades and 'Dor' will be another feather in his cap. It will be first time that Ayesha Takia will be doing deglamourized role in this heart warming social saga. Ex-Miss India-turned-actress Gul Panag has lackluster journey in Bollywood with offbeat film 'Dhoop' and disastrous flop 'Jurm'. This film holds importance in her career to have stronghold in the film industry. 'Dor' is exclusively conceived to cater class or niche audience, so box-office expectations will be low and grim. 'Dor' music has the gloss and fragrance of colorful ethnic folk music of Rajasthan with a strong feel of Indian classical music. The original soundtracks of 'Dor' can be heard on Universal.

ALLAH HOO : In grandeur of "Allah" (God Almighty), a sacred Sufi "Qawaali" "Allah Hoo" comes with conventional set up of classical music. After Himesh Reshammiya, it's composer-turned-singer Salim Merchant holding mike and displaying his Sufi singing flair. The soundtrack comes with traditionally pious lyrics, fine usage of "tabla", "shehnai" and piano beats in background. In the present context where Sufi music is gaining momentum the soundtrack is likely to get acceptance from mature listeners. Salim-Suleiman's fine mixing of keyboard generated trendy music with classical musical set is brilliant. In Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's immortal melodies, "Allah Hoo" as one of the precious rendition and has been plagiarized many times in films and pop albums.

'Dor' proves another path-breaking success for director Nagesh Kukunoor and music composers -- Salim-Suleiman. In an era where hip-hop, rap and Sufi pop is ruling the charts they have dared enter the territories of quality musical entertainment. The album deserves applause for being ethical, folksy, classical and pure in terms of content and style. It will have limited takers from class audiences but will be counted as the finest classical composition in recent times.

A drum (its generic name in Persian, tabireh) is a percussion instrument, a hollow object with a membrane stretched over one (some) end(s), played by beating with hands or the sticks. In Iran (formerly known as Persia) different drums are played both in art and regional music. In this article, the author will introduce the main drums of Persia that are more or less the most popular ones.

Tonbak (Persian goblet drum)Goblet drums are played in different areas, from Asia, Europe and Africa. Among them, tonbak, Arabic darbouka and African djembe are getting popular in the world.

Tonbak, a goblet shaped drum, is the chief drum played in Persian art music, though it is played in folk music too. Also a larger version with the name zarb and a clay body, it is played in zourkhaneh (Persian traditional gymnasium).

The history of tonbak, with the Pahlavi (pre-Islamic language of Persia) name, dombalak, goes back to thousands of years ago.

Tonbak, in the past, was considered an accompaniment instrument. Thanks to great efforts of the late maestro Hossein Tehrani (the father of modern tonbak), people's opinion changed a little bit and this drum had a more important role in Persian art music and was considered as a solo instrument.

Dayereh (Persian frame drum)Frame drums are among the most popular drums played in four corners of the globe.

Dayereh is one of the most popular drums played in folk music of Iran. Different versions of dayereh with different names are played in different regions of Iran.

Perhaps the very well promoted version is the ghaval (Azerbaijani frame drum), the drum played by Azeri singer in the Azerbaijani art (called mugham music) and folk music (called ashighlar music). One of the most notable ghaval players of Iran is the maestro Latif Tahmasebi-zadeh, who promoted the ghaval as the solo drum in Iran and Republic of Azerbaijan.

The history of dayereh, with the Pahlavi name, dareh, goes back to pre-Islamic ages. Dayereh is sometimes played in Persian art music.

Daf (Persian frame drum)Daf, as a drum played in Sufi music of Iran, is one of the most popular drums mentioned in Persian literature by very famous Persian poets such as Rumi and Hafiz. After the establishment of 'Shayda Ensemble', daf was played and popularized by Bijan Kamkar, the daf player who created the modern style of daf, beside the traditional style played in khanghah (Sufi temple).

The history of daf, with the Pahlavi name, dap, goes back to pre-Islamic ages and today, thanks to many daf players it has become that popular and played in different genres of Persian music that it is considered the second national drum of Iran, beside the tonbak that is the first national and the most important drum of Iran.

Dohol (Persian cylindrical drum)Dohol is the also one of the most important drums played in Persian regional music. It is a very loud drum mainly played with drumsticks, in outdoors.

Dohol is the main accompaniment of sorna (Persian oboe), mainly played in festive occasion.

Some versions of dohol are played with hands too.

Naghareh (Persian kettledrums)Naghareh, is also another popular drum, played in different regions of Iran. Its size can vary from very small to huge ones that were tightened on elephant-backs in war fields in order to accompany karna (Persian large sized wind instrument) for the courage of soldiers.

Some believe that tabla (famous Indian drum) is originated in naghareh, Indian dhol (similar to Persian dohol) and pakhawaj (Indian barrel shaped drum).

A total of 60,000 tickets have been sold for the 23 Semah performances that will be held this year in Konya as part of 18-day long celebrations commemorating Rumi.

The number of tickets sold is expected to exceed 100, 000 by the end of September. Culture director for the Konya municipality, Abdussettar Yarar said the popular commemorative activates were extended this year, and added that the 733rd International Commemoration Activities for Rumi (Seb-i Arus)will last one week longer than past celebrations.

Yarar said they are enthusiastically preparing for the ceremonies, and emphasized that this year’s colorful activities will only improve with future performances.

Yarar said in previous years they started ticket sales just a few weeks ahead of the events; however, this year they began promotion and sales immediately after last year’s activities ended on 18 December 2005.

So far, the number of tickets sold has reached about 60,000 and this number continues to increase as the festival date approaches. The venue where the Semah performances are held seats about 2,700 people, and the number of tickets sold has already well exceeded the capacity of the hall where performances will take place.

Yarar said that though he prefers not want to give a specific number when forecasting the number of tickets that will be sold overall, a figure of around 100,000 would not be impossible to reach.

Pagla Kanai (1810-1890), a mystic folk poet and musician, was born to a family of peasants in Nebutola village in Jhenidah. Though he is popular as Pagla Kanai, his original name was Kanai Sheikh. He was a poet with the ability to compose songs spontaneously. He composed what were basically mystical and spiritual songs. The themes of his songs featured topics such as dehotattta(analysis of human form), the transient world, and the mystery of life. He composed songs about Prophet Muhammad (SM) as well as hymns to Krishna. But, Pagla Kanai is popular for developing a Jari form titled Dhuajari, in which an incident is narrated in a rhythmic tone.

The origins of Jarigaan may be traced back to the early 17th century in Bangladesh when poetry was written on the tragic stories of Karbala. However, Pagla Kanai successfully used other myths such as Radha-Krishna, Monosha-mongala as well as contemporary social issues of his time and traditional Baul music in his compositions of Dhuajari.

Through these, Kanai has analysed Sufism, meaning of life and other themes in his songs. In fact, he gave aesthetic presentation of Jarigaan, and subsequently earned a name in history. His songs were once very popular in many areas including Rajshahi, Mymensingh, Tangail, Faridpur, Pabna, Jessore, Kushtia, Khulna, Barisal and others.

A Dhuajari session may also take place between two Jarigaan teams. The teams render songs in a question-answer format. Towards the end, the team members put forward extempore arguments in an effort to prove their opponent wrong.

Pagla Kanai was the lead singer of a troupe. His itinerant group of singers included Kala Chand Bayati, Hakim Shah, Karim Biswas, Indu Biswas and Karamaddi.

But, not much initiative is taken to uphold the tradition. Dr Mazharul Islam included 240 of these songs in his book, Kabi Pagla Kanai. Professor Abul Ahsan Choudhury, M Monsuruddin have also written books on the same subject. Moreover, ministry of Cultural Affairs has built an auditorium adjacent to the shrine of Pagla Kanai, at the remote village of Nebutala, Madhabpur.

Unfortunately this rich tradition is on the verge of extinction. To celebrate his birth anniversary, a few of his followers, mostly above fifty, gather at his shrine and render songs. But, nowadays very few people are interested in Dhuajari. As a result the experts believe that the tradition of Pagla Kanai is fading away.

More than 100,000 people are expected to buy tickets for this year's ceremonies to commemorate Mevlana Jalaladdin Rumi, the father of Sufism.

A senior official from the Konya Culture and Tourism Directorate told the Anatolia news agency that 60,000 prospective ticket buyers had applied to attend the International Commemoration Ceremonies for the 733rd Reunion Anniversary of Mevlana, which will feature 23 sema dance performances this year. The number of ticket seekers was expected to reach at least 100,000 by the end of September.

The ceremonies this year were expanded by a week and will last from Dec. 1-17.

The same official said the Konya Municipality and Selçuk University were working hard to make this year's ceremonies colorful.

The directorate has prepared 10,000 posters announcing the ceremonies in 10 languages. Requests for tickets will be accepted until the end of September. Meanwhile, hotels in Konya have already accepted reservations, bringing them to approximately 70 percent occupancy three months before the start of the ceremonies.

Last November UNESCO included the Mevlevi Sema Ceremony, a spiritual and religious tradition of Sufism, on its list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. UNESCO's decision, which highlighted the whirling dervish dances both in Turkey and on the international platform, is expected to increase tourists to Konya as well as promote the Sufi tradition

Experts say the sema indicates “listening, singing beautifully” in Sufism as well as signifying an act of feeling God and a mystical journey of spiritual ascent through mind and love to "Perfection" or “God.”

In this journey the whirling dervishes symbolically turn towards the truth, grow through love, abandon the ego and all materialistic values of the world, find the truth and arrive at the "Perfect" then return from this spiritual journey with greater maturity, so as to love and to be of service to the whole of creation without discrimination against beliefs, races, classes and nations.

For the first 21 years of my life, all I knew about Afghanistan came from the books I read and the stories my father shared. A writer on Sufi Islamic philosophy, he would tell tales that centered around the beautiful orchards and fountains of Paghman, just outside the capital, where my family is from and to which I longed to return. Other stories featured my great-great-great grandfather Jan Fishan Khan, a warlord who sang fragments of a wild Afghan song, dating to the British invasion of the late 1830s:

"Oh foreigners -- do not attack Kabul. Attacking Kabul is my job!"

All this time I was living in Britain, where the newspapers were telling me of a country under continual attack, devastated by years of war beginning with the Soviet occupation in 1979 and then by the Taliban's oppressive regime. But it was literature and legend that prompted me to begin traveling to Afghanistan 20 years ago -- first as a freelance journalist, then as a documentary filmmaker. It was my father's stories that allowed me to see the beauty of a place that was even then descending into anarchy.

Any introduction to Afghan culture should, of course, start at the top -- with the giant of Persian literature, the Sufi philosopher Jalaluddin Rumi, who hailed from Balkh, which is today in northern Afghanistan, and whose great poetical work, " The Masnavi, " is still quoted verbatim by any Afghans you are likely to meet, be they bus drivers or university professors.

But Afghan culture is hardly stuck in the 13th century. Since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, the artistic energies the regime suppressed have exploded, sometimes in unexpected forms. So now we have Afghanistan's first and only rap star, a diminutive 28-year-old called DJ Besho. He raps in Dari Persian, quotes verses from the Koran and doesn't curse -- but he remains too racy, too Western, for many in a country still reeling from the Taliban's ban on music. And even the 2005 Miss England is, well, Afghan. Hammasa Kohistani, who fled the war in Afghanistan, has scored an elegant victory over the Taliban's repression of women while using her public platform to condemn Western stereotypes of Muslims.

The Afghan film industry suffered intolerable state censorship during the Soviet era, followed by a total ban under the Taliban. One Afghan film editor recalled watching the Taliban methodically destroy an irreplaceable film archive, and when I was undercover in Kabul during that era, one of the spookiest sights that met my eyes was of film and videotape strewn like ticker tape from lampposts and telephone poles.

Now, however, a new Afghan film industry has risen from the wreckage. The first full-length feature film to be made by an Afghan in the Taliban-era -- Siddik Barmak's " Osama " -- won a Golden Globe award in 2004, and deservedly so. Apart from its stunning cinematography, the film is memorable for the performance by Marina Golbahari, the child-heroine, who was discovered by the director while she was begging on the streets. This spontaneous quality is shared by two Iranian-made films about Afghanistan that also make use of non-professional actors: Mohsen Makhmalbaf's " Kandahar " and Marzieh Meshkini's " Stray Dogs. "

Two books by Afghan writers, translated into English, stand out as true literature forged from more than 20 years of war. In addition to Khaled Hosseini's acclaimed " The Kite Runner, " which captures an Afghanistan brutalized by Soviet occupiers, U.S.-sponsored warlords and the repressive yet furtively sexualized Taliban, look to the lesser-known but almost unbearably gripping " Earth and Ashes " by Atiq Rahimi, an Afghan political exile in Paris. In a mere 60 pages, Rahimi tells the story of an Afghan village's destruction by a Russian bomb through the eyes of its sole survivors, an old man and his grandson. Novel, short story, call it what you will -- the prose always hovers on the edge of poetry.

For it is poetry that has always been closest to Afghan hearts. Sadly, much of it echoes Afghanistan's bleak history of war. From Rudyard Kipling's classic 19th-century vision in "The Young British Soldier" --

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

-- to the yearning of Afghanistan's late poet laureate, Khalilullah Khalili, while a refugee from the Soviet occupation:

I am the bitter fruit falling upon the earth.Thus in the clutches of time I remain.O spring of liberty!Your grace, what else it could beBut to render this bitter fruit sweet ?

But here again, the last word should go to Rumi, whose call soars across the centuries, far above strife and war, and beyond the confines of Islamic fanaticism. My favorite translation of Rumi's " I Am the Life of My Beloved " is by my father, Idries Shah, and was published in his book " The Way of the Sufi ":

What can I do, Muslims? I do not know myself.I am no Christian, no Jew, no Magian, no Musulman.Not of the East, not of the West. Not of the land, not of the sea. . . .My place placeless, my trace traceless.Neither body nor soul: All is the life of my Beloved.

(...)The controversy about Vande Mataram has been so ugly that I turned with relief and, indeed, with joy to a truly outstanding programme on the national song on CNN IBN. The programme derived its strength from the fact that it did as little talking as possible, for once, confined to three simple questions put to musicians. After that the music spoke for itself, because it is a beautiful and stirring song in itself and does not need any verbal certificates or angry defenses.

A woman sufi singer from Delhi, popular singer Abhijit from Mumbai, a two-man rock band from Kolkata and a woman who rendered the song's raag Kalyan in Carmatic style gave the song a status, a dignity and an emotional appeal by treating it as a beautiful piece of music in its own right. Both the sufi and the carnatic singer and surprisingly the rock band "Guru" of the young guitar player who gave only the accompaniment a modern twist, rendered the song, in their individual ways but in its original mode - no AR Rahman or Lata Mangeshkar to fiddle about with it. And that is what Vande Mataram is and should remain, and not a political football.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Ahmet Ozhan, one of Turkey’s leading Sufi and folk music singers, was welcomed by a massive audience in Kosovo.

Ozhan had been invited to Kosovo by the Istanbul Foundation.

He sang old and new songs from Turkish Sufi music, accompanied by a performance from the whirling dervishes.

Responding to journalists’ questions before the 4,000-person concert, Ozhan said: “We came here for our brothers to sing Sufi music along with our friends. I am happy to be here with the people of Kosovo. The country is undergoing a healing process. Although we have been away for some time, we want to enjoy being together now. It is a place that I have visited several times over the past 25 years.”

The presence of German soldiers of the KFOR Peace Force at the concert received much notice as well.

By Stephanie Dowrick - The Australian - AustraliaSaturday, September 9, 2006

Richard Schoch's invitation in The Secrets of Happiness is to look backwards rather more often than forwards. The view (and views) he reveals are, however, every bit as enticing. Schoch is an academic, professor of the history of culture at Queen Mary, University of London. He is a confident, gifted writer: a great bringer of reading happiness through his clarity, wit and contagious excitement. He opens his book with the glorious line, "Unhappy is the story of happiness", then keeps up the pace.

His take on happiness is to use it, and our desire for it, as a means, especially as a means to explore some differences and similarities in the great religious philosophical traditions, including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism, while also revisiting the theories of the utilitarians, the Stoics and the Epicureans to illuminate our contemporary confusions.

In his chapters on Christianity and Islam, Schoch focuses largely on Thomas Aquinas and the mystical path of Sufism, respectively. (Within Sufism he is especially interested in the work of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali.)

A man of his 13th-century times, Aquinas believed that true happiness could be found only through grace in the life hereafter. Sufis believe that union with God and the bliss that comes with it is entirely possible in this life through a process of spiritual surrender.

Without losing any of my happiness as I read, I did wonder if this was rather a dubious comparison. Christian mystics have also written extensively of divine union in this life and bliss therefrom. But this is not a book that seeks to create a hierarchy of experiences.

"Happiness," as Schoch most creatively shows, "is less an objective fact to be encountered in the world than an experience to be cultivated by each individual. Thus, we speak not of any single secret of happiness - applicable to everyone - but only of the secrets of happiness, a different one for each person."

The Secrets of Happiness: Three Thousand Years of Searching for the Good Life By Richard Schoch Profile, 228pp, $39.95

By Noopur Tiwari - NDTV.com, New Delhi Television Ltd. - New Delhi,IndiaFriday, September 8, 2006

Active during the Second World War, Noor carried on as the last link between Paris and London even when other agents were captured.Now for the first time the Indian government has paid tribute to this amazing woman.

Noor, spy princess, was the daughter of Hazrat Inayat Khan who introduced Sufism to the West family descendants of Tipu Sultan.She started working for the women's auxiliary British force as a radio operator and then later joined the Special Operations Forces.

Recently, at a small monument in her house near Paris, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee paid tribute to this remarkable woman.

Known as Nora Baker to some and Madeline to others, Noor specialised in dropping agents behind enemy lines. She died at the age of 29 executed by the gestapo."Her story of heroism, bravery and sacrifice will always inspire the younger generation," said Mukherjee.

At Fazal Manzil [which means "house of blessings"; the Khan's house in Suresnes, near Paris], Noor spent most of her childhood and it was in this room that Noor and her brother Vilayat decided they could no longer stay away from the fight against fascism.

Shrabani Basu in her book Spy Princess: The life of Noor Inayat Khan has put together the story of the incredible woman who worked for the resistance as the last link between Paris and London."I started researching her life and it coincided with her files being released by the British government. All her secret files, I put them together the family side and the friends and tried to bring out the story of this incredible woman," said Shrabani Basu, Author.

A harp that stands silently in her house today was her favourite and Noor's friends and family said she had a vivid imagination.

"She was Indian I mean the family grew up here. Her father was a Sufi preacher they used to love dressing in Indian clothes. She wrote in Urdu, spoke Hindi. It was a large joint family they all lived here together and it was a typical Indian family. She played the Veena, she identified with the Indian freedom movement so that's a strong link," said Basu.

Noor was also a writer of children's books and one of her cover names came from one of her own stories.

Many called her a dreamer but she went on to win some of the highest gallantry awards of the battlefield, the British George Cross and the French Croix de Guerre but in India she still remains an unsung heroine.

Monday, November 27, 2006

(...)Somalis are 100% Moslems. Their brand of Islam is Sufism. A Somali journalist Bashir Goth compares Wahabism and Sufism. “Sufism, however, which was the Somali way of Islam and which Wahhabism condemns as a heresy, reaches out to the heart and good sense of all mankind without distinction. Instead of shunning all other faiths and branding them as bogus religions, Sufism sees all faiths as equally valid, following directly God’s words “whosesoever ye turn, there is the face of God.” Where Wahhabism sows hatred and rancor even among Moslems, Sufism preaches sulh-e kull (universal peace) and Mahabbat e-kull (universal love).”

The British and the Italian colonial administrators and the Vatican dotted the country with churches and church run orphanages and tried to convert as many Somalis as possible into Christianity. The American Mennonite mission built and administered some of the best schools in Somalia. Yet Islam prevailed in perfect harmony with Somali culture for 14 centuries in Somalia.(...)

For American Christians who don’t know a Shiite from a Sunni, or an Alawi from a Wahhabi, divisions within Islam can be daunting to decipher. Here’s a simple Who’s Who of a few major groups -- either religious or political -- that claim the Islamic label.

-- Sunni. About 85 percent of Muslims worldwide identify themselves as Sunni, which means “tradition.” Sunnis consider themselves followers of the traditions established by Muhammad and the first two generations that followed him.

-- Shiite. Followers of Shi’a constitute the second-largest group within Islam. The schism between the Sunni and Shiites originated over questions of who should succeed Muhammad’s immediate group of handpicked caliphs. The Shiites favored Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law, as the legitimate successor and believe descendents of Muhammad should rule the Islamic community. (Some political leaders -- both Shiite and Sunni -- have used their supposed descent from Muhammad to shore up their resume, including Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Jordan’s King Hussein and Sheikh Muhammed Hussein Fadlallah of Lebanon’s Hezbollah party.)

-- Sufi. The Sufis are part of a mystical movement that stresses personal, intimate knowledge of God. Most Sufis are Sunni, but some Shiite Muslims embrace Sufi principles. Some extreme Sufi mystics are considered outside Muslim orthodoxy.

-- Wahhabi. Ironically, the Wahhabis have been compared both to Unitarians and Puritans. They stress the unity of God and reject traditions not found in the Quran. The movement, focused on purifying Islam, originated in Arabia under the leadership of al-Wahhab in the 1700s. Literal interpretation of the Quran has led Wahhabis to administer the cutting off of hands as a penalty for some crimes.

-- Alawi. The Alawites generally have been considered a heretical sect within Shiite Islam, but it has moved closer to acceptance in the last 30 years. It has ties to some political leaders in Syria and its Bath party.

-- Nation of Islam. Elijah Muhammad founded this African-American movement in the 1930s. It is not regarded as orthodox by mainstream Islam. Louis Farrakhan became the Nation of Islam’s leader after the founder’s death -- particularly after Muhammad’s son, Wallace D. Muhammad, moved toward orthodox Islam.

Worldspace Satellite Radio has launched a 24-hour Urdu radio station - Falak. Named after the Urdu word for 'sky', the channel aims to showcase the vast repertoire of Urdu music.

Channel No. 109 on the Worldspace Satellite Radio Network, Falak captures the nuances of Urdu through a range of innovative programming that brings to life the romance of more than just the language. The channel revives memories of a whole tradition of impeccable style and etiquette, prose and poetry, and a rapidly vanishing set of traditional values.

Falak will now enable music lovers to go back in time and indulge in the lyrical sounds of Urdu.

Falak showcases the widest collection of Urdu music on radio in the form of ghazals, qawalis and film songs, broadcasting rare songs that are not even available in music stores today. The carefully structured programming highlights the various forms of Urdu music ranging from evocative poetry readings or Mushairas, exclusive interviews with singers and poets of a bygone era, special live recordings, trivia on historical events, celebrating the lives of legends from Urdu literature and music, sharing social messages contained in ancient Urdu literature, in addition to a host of other exclusive programming.

Sufiyana Kalaam, a special programme featuring Sufi Qawalis, Mersias, Nohas and Baints. Ghazal Usne Chhedi is based on Urdu poetry. Sham-E-Farozan will air best ghazals by renowned Urdu poets.

Radio Falak will also air the ethos of a bygone era and revel in the soothing and powerful voices of legends like Ghulam Ali, Mehdi Hassan, Iqbal Bano, Tahira Saiyad, Farida Khanam, Reshma, Abida Parveen and Nusrat Saheb.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

AJMER: Around 700 students of a school run by a Muslim body here on Thursday sang Vande Mataram to celebrate the centenary of the national song.

Students of the Khwaja Amania secondary school which is controlled by the Anjuman Committee, recited the song on Thursday morning and there were no objections raised. School Principal B. L. Sharma said that the students had practiced hard for the recital on the special occasion.

Among those who participated in the function was vice president of the Ajmer Dargah Committee Abdul Baari Chishti.

Recitals of the song were also reportedly held in other Muslim colonies of the city, which is home to the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti.

This portrait of Naguib Mahfouz is by artist Gamil Shafik, a long-standing member of the novelist's Harafish group of friends, who writes: "Naguib Mahfouz taught me love of work / love of life / taught me tolerance / taught me modesty / taught me love of the Other / taught me equanimity / taught me contentment/ taught me pride and dignity / All this I learned as I contemplated his moments of silence, wondering what was going through his mind at the Harafish gatherings, about quarter of a century ago."

The death of Naguib Mahfouz constitutes, in addition to the national and cultural loss of the towering genius of modern Arabic literature, a personal loss for me. Because I have known Naguib Mahfouz since I arrived in Cairo, in my late teens, for my university education. Even before going to attend the first lectures at my faculty, I went to Mahfouz's weekly meeting at the Opera Café in 1959.(...)Mahfouz's years at Cairo University, where he studied philosophy starting 1930, coincided with the economic crisis and the repressive years of the unstable minority governments in Egypt at the time. The university was teeming with political activities and Mahfouz was a liberal Wafdist -- the Wafd was the patriotic party of the majority at the time, working to end the British occupation of the country. But he was aware of all other political denominations at the time, particularly the Leftists and Muslim Brothers, whose exponents appear in many of his novels.

On graduating in 1934 he worked for the university, contemplated postgraduate study and even registered for a PhD in philosophy, with Sufism in Islamic philosophy as the topic of his research. His first publications were a series of philosophical essays in cultural journals, but he soon abandoned this academic endeavour and embarked on a literary career. Yet philosophical concepts and spiritual and Sufi preoccupations continued to pervade his literary work.(...)The last work Mahfouz wrote before the Muslim fundamentalists' failed attempt on his life in 1994 left him paralyzed in his right arm is Asda' Al-Sira Al-Dhatiyya (1993; English translation Echoes of An Autobiography.It is a fragmented narrative with strong sufi resonance that pushes the narrative to the limits of poetry and philosophical revelations. This is also the case with Mahfouz's last work Ahlam Fatrat Al-Naqaha.

The world of Naguib Mahfouz is a vast and extremely rich one extending from pharaonic times down to the present day. He spans the various changes in the reality, dreams and aspirations of his nation and provides an elaborate record of its attempts to come to terms with the process of modernity. Although his world is mainly Cairo and predominantly the old quarter of Gammaliyya in which he spent his childhood, he made the urban scene an elaborate and highly significant metaphor of the national condition. His narrative world is peopled with characters from all walks of Egyptian life from beggars to aristocrats, with a special place reserved for the intellectuals with whom Mahfouz identifies. On the literary plane, his career spans the whole process of development of the Arabic novel from the historical to the modernistic and lyrical. He earned the Arabic novel respect and popularity and lived to see it flourish in the work of numerous writers throughout the Arab world.

Just when you thought that the hundreds of pages of reading, weekly chemistry lab reports, lengthy econ problem sets and dreaded history oral presentations were too much for your brain (which is slowly returning from summer vacation) to handle, stop feeling sorry for yourself, because compared to some Ithaca residents, your intellectual to-do list is as mundane as the mid-day talk shows on National Public Radio.

Marcia and David Radin, co-owners and operators of the Ithaca Zen Center, a small rural Zen community which also houses the Dervish Retreat Center, have been on a continual mental quest that breeches well beyond the depths and drudgery of college academia.

“A recurring goal of ours has been to figure out how to make sense of life,” said David, “so our center was built around teaching people how to take care of their minds from a deeper perspective.”

David founded the center in 1978 as the Beech Hill Pond Meditation Center, a facility reminiscent of a Hippie community formerly stationed miles from the telephone and electrical lines that signified advancement into technology’s modern age. Since then, the center has moved twice — first to a location in downtown Ithaca, then to its current home, a 60 acre spread just eight miles south of Ithaca. “Our practice involves specific postures, reading style, all amounting to reaching a certain level of being,” he said. While its popularity has increased over the years, the Zen Center has maintained a small-community feel that lends to a daily zazen schedule at the Center and twice-weekly meditation practice at Cornell’s Annabel Taylor Hall.

All sessions are open to the public and typically vary in attendance from six to 20 people. Although there are over 20,000 students currently enrolled at Cornell, student attendance at the sessions rarely tops zero. “Most of the people who attend [the Annabel Taylor sessions] are faculty members,” said David, “students are too focused on their careers and their current situations. They are not involved in reflecting on what their being is and means.” However, their lack of attendance does not mean students are immune to the issues and dilemmas that those who practice meditation are working to sort out. “Everyone runs into reasoning why we should take care of the mind,” David said, “and while some people may turn to therapy and drugs, few work to train their minds to deal with pain spiritually.”

And spirituality, while an important aspect of meditation, is also a tenet on which the Melevi, an ancient Eastern European mystic practice, is based.

In 1983, Marcia Radin, who goes by her Turkish name Khadija, brought this esoteric branch of Sufism to no other place than Ithaca, N.Y. With its roots dating back to thirteenth century Turkey, followers of the Melevi, known as the Whirling Dervishes, still read the poetry, listen to the music and practice the famous turning dance of their spiritual father, Rumi.“Like meditation, Melevi is a centering practice. It allows you to understand a sense of self,” said Marcia. “Although some people think it is a mystical branch of Islam, is it not. Many religions, such as Christianity and Judaism, practice it, making it clear that it is not a religion, but a type of spirituality.”

As for Marcia, she does not worship a particular religion along side her practice of Melevi. The spiritual enlightenment that she obtains from whirling is above and beyond what she thinks she could reap from organized religion. “I can’t really put into words what I get out of [whirling], just like someone can’t say why they feel good after they go to church,” she said. “But the practices lead me to deep satisfaction.”

In her decision to give up religion, Marcia made a clear definitional distinction between religion and other spiritual forms. “Mysticism is all about knowing, not believing,” she said. “It never makes God an object, and I never feel I needed to believe in or turn to anything, when I could know it.” Knowing, undoubtedly, has been an important part of her spiritual development, starting from when she initially witnessed the sacred act of turning over thirty years ago.

“I first saw turning when I was a professional dancer in 1971 by the followers of Sufi Murshid Samuel Lewis in San Francisco, and it immediately entranced me,” Marcia said. “I knew it was what I wanted to do, and I have been doing it ever since.”And since the inception of her teaching career in 1978, Marcia has traveled both domestically and globally practicing, and spreading the tradition of, the Whirling Dervishes.

Her studies have brought her to, among other places, Israel, Turkey, California, Montreal, Connecticut and Pittsburgh. With a mission as advantageous as enabling all to “experience meditation, drumming, whirling and every other activity as a doorway to being present,” she will continue to challenge her students and herself as she continues on her path towards spiritual enlightenment.

Although she notes that more and more people are becoming interested in Melevi, Marcia still classifies it as being “not very popular.” And the Dervish Retreat Center, which doesn’t advertise, and attracts people strictly by word of mouth, still boasts a pool of members ranging in age from their mid-20s through 60s. “We don’t actively seek members, they find us,” she said.

This is a transcript from The World Today, a program broadcast around Australia at 12:10pm on ABC Local Radio. Africa Correspondent Zoe Daniel reports to Eleanor Hall.

ELEANOR HALL: Islamic leaders in Somalia have agreed to form a joint army and police force with the country's interim government.

The deal has been reached at peace talks between the two parties in Sudan, and although international peacekeepers were rejected by the Islamists, this deal may signify their willingness to work together to create a functioning country.

Islamic courts have taken control of the capital Mogadishu, and much of the south, while the interim government has little power and is virtually hemmed in in the town of Baidoa.

The United States has accused the Islamists of being linked to al-Qaeda, but others say they seem to have brought order to parts of Somalia for the first time in years.

ZOE DANIEL: A few days ago the Port of Mogadishu started receiving ships for the first time in 11 years.

There is still unrest, but residents of the war-torn city say they can walk the streets again after years of anarchy and violence. And now a functioning police force and army look like being formed.

The agreement has come out of talks being held in Sudan, which aim to bring peace to arguably the world's most dysfunctional country.

Leader of the Somali government delegation, Parliament speaker Sharif Hassan.

SHARIF HASSAN: We are brothers. We can achieve a lot, and we want to focus entirely on the ways and means to take Somalia out of its current debacles.

ZOE DANIEL: Somalia's interim government is based in the city of Baidoa, but it has little influence elsewhere, and it's certainly not as powerful as the Islamic courts who have taken control of Mogadishu and much of Somalia's south.

The Islamists drove out warlords who'd been ruling Mogadishu since the country's last leader was toppled in 1991.

They've been accused of being a front for al-Qaeda, but the leader of the Islamist delegation, Ibrahim Hassan Adou, says they want peace. Ethiopian troops are believed to be in the country to support the interim government, and he's warned that it's their presence that could reignite civil war.

IBRAHIM HASSAN ADOU: We would like to reaffirm our commitment to peace and good neighbourhood. We are not a threat to any of our neighbours, despite some accusations to the contrary by some of these neighbours trying to find pretext to destabilise Somalia.

ZOE DANIEL: International observers, particularly in America, have reacted negatively to the rise of the Islamists in Somalia, warning that the country could become a haven for terrorists.

The introduction of harsh Sharia courts has also fed fear that a Taliban style hardline Islamic state could be formed.

But Doctor Richard Cornwall from the Institute of Security Studies says that's not the right way to respond.

RICHARD CORNWALL: Somalis are after all not Arabs, they don't speak Arabic. Their form of Islam has generally been a fairly moderate Sufi kind of Islam, and so whether they would actually become a new Taliban, as some American extremists allege, I think is highly doubtful.

ZOE DANIEL: He says the international community risks creating extremism in Somalia by viewing the conflict simplistically as an Arab versus non Arab war, which it isn't.

RICHARD CORNWELL: Well, the problem is that if we start to look at the internal politics of Somalia through the anti-terrorist war lens, then we're going to… we're not going to see what's actually going on.

And in fact we stand a very good chance of ending up with a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that we internationalise a domestic conflict, we come in and support one group of people who are waving the anti-terrorist banner against another group of people who are not necessarily terrorists. Then the nationalist card gets played and we end up radicalising the entire conflict.

ZOE DANIEL: Somalia's interim government and leaders of the Islamic courts will meet again at the end of October to discuss a power sharing agreement. In the meantime, the two groups have agreed to co-exist peacefully, without outside interference.

An International Sufism Symposium with the title of "Sufism's Ancient Wisdom and Present Day Expressions" will be held from 14 to 16 of September 2006 in Edinburgh, Scotland with participation of Iranian and foreign scholars. This program is organized and sponsored by the International Association of Sufism (IAS), the Edinburgh Institute for Advanced Learning (EIAL), and the Edinburgh International Center for World Spiritualities (EICWS).

This event will be held at St. George's West Church in Edinburgh. The programs of this symposium include: an international gathering of Sufis with representatives of schools, orders and tariqas (Sufi orders) worldwide demonstrating the diversity within this mystical school of the Islamic traditions. Some art programs, music performance, lectures, spiritual practice, shared chanting (zikr) and discussion amongst world leaders in the Sufi tradition are the other programs of this two-day symposium.

Sufism is a mythic tradition of Islam. Sufism encompasses a diverse range of beliefs and practices. Sufism has produced a large body of poetry in Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Kurdish, Urdu, etc, which it great influence can be traced in works of some Iranian poets including Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, Farid Ud-Din Attar, and others such as Abdul Qader Bedil, Bulleh shah etc.

It is believed that the word originates from Suf, the Arabic word for wool, referring to the simple cloaks the early Muslim ascetics wore. However, not all Sufis wear cloaks or cloths of wool. Another etymological theory states that the root word of Sufi is the Arabic word Safa, means purity.

Sufism originates in the teachings of the Holy Prophet Muhammad. Some orientalist scholars believe that Sufism was essentially the result of Islam evolving in a more mystic direction.

The Sufis dispersed throughout the Middle East, particularly in the area which were previously under Byzantine influence and control. During 1200-1500 CE, Sufism experience an era of increased activity in various parts of the Islamic world. This period is considered as the Classical Period or the Golden Age of Sufism. The propagation of Sufism started from its origin in Baghdad, Iraq, and then spread to Persia, India, North Africa and Muslim Spain.

The effects of modern thoughts, science, and philosophy on Sufism and the advent of Sufism to the West can be seen in today's world as well. A number of scholars perceive influences on Sufism from pre-Islamic and non-Islamic schools of mysticism and philosophy. Some of these new perspectives originate from the synthesis of Persian civilization with Islam, an emphasis on spiritual aspects of Islam, and the incorporation of ideas and practices from other mysticisms such as Gnosticism and Hinduism into Islam.

A significant of Persian literature comes from the Sufis, who created great books of poetry, for instance Rubaiyat-e Omar Khayyam, the Conference of the Birds, and also the Masnavi Mevlana, all of which contain teachings of the Sufis.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

The Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF), now in its third year, will run from Sept. 28 to Oct. 3 in Ubud, Bali.

Themed Desa-Kala-Patra (Place-Time-Identity), the festival will feature more than 100 Indonesian and international writers in a series of discussions, book launches, writing workshops and other literary activities.

"I hope that the festival could become a springboard for Indonesian writers to meet international authors," festival director Janet de Neefe said on Wednesday.

One international author participating in UWRF 2006 is William Dalrymple, a well-known travel writer and historian who will share his story about love and romance in 18th-Century India in White Moguls.

Anita Desai (India), Shauna Singh Baldwin (Canada), Su Tong (China) and writers from Australia, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United States will also participate in the festival.

Writers from Indonesia and its ASEAN neighbors, including Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore, will also join the third edition of the annual festival.

Several writers will launch new titles and CDs during the festival, including Australian writer-performer Jan Cornall with Take Me to Paradise, Indonesian poet Sitok Srengenge with Singing Srengenge (CD of jazz poetry) and Indonesian writer-philosopher Toety Heraty with Calon Arang-Lyrical Prose.

A special highlight this year will be a tribute to the late Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who passed away April 30. Several speakers, including director John McGlynn of the Lontar Foundation, which has translated Pram's works, will talk about the multiple-Nobel nominee and internationally acknowledged Indonesian writer.

The festival also offers children's programs, such as story-telling performances, cartoon drawing and hip-hop song writing and recording workshops.

In line with current events and issues, British author Ziauddin Sardar and Algerian-born master of Sufism Sheikh Khaled Bentounes will discuss the myths and realities of one of the most misunderstood faiths in the world, Islam.

Festival director de Neefe, an Australian restaurateur and writer who has been living in Bali for 20 years, underlined that part of the festival's objectives was to counteract the damaging effects of the 2004 and 2005 bombings in Bali.

"Through the festival, we want to diminish the negativity of the tragic incidents. We plan also to invite writers of other religions, such as Hinduism and Christianity," she said.

Woman writer Ayu Utami, who is also a festival committee member, hoped that the festival could become an alternative of spiritual and cultural tourism to Bali.

"Spiritual experiences can be found in literary events, such as this festival, not only from religions," said Ayu, whose novel Saman was awarded the Prince Claus Prize in 2000.

As soon as the conversation opens, poet, playwright and translator Anju Makhija talks about Pune. Born and brought up here, Makhija’s affinity towards the city is obvious. “We travelled a lot due to my father’s profession and Pune is etched in my memory,” says she.

So, little wonder then that Makhija is excited about her trip to Pune on September 4 at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), where she along with theatre personality Tom Alter and poet Priya Sarukkai Chabria will read selections from the book Seeking The Beloved, written by 16th century Sufi poet Shah Abdul Latif, translated by Makhija and Hari Dilgir.

Taking a break from her Pune memories, Makhija talks about herself, almost matter-of-fact. “I started writing poetry in my teens and my commercial writings overtook my passion to write poems,” says she. Makhija also wrote columns for The Indian Express Mumbai in late 90s - Expressions and Media Mix.

Makhija has written eight plays so far. Some of her well-known works include Unspoken Dialogue with Alyque Padumsee and The Last Train, that was shortlisted for the BBC World Prize. “This play was recently staged in Mumbai and received a tremendous response. It is a subtle political and religious satire,” says she. Makhija has also worked with international directors, but most memorable was working with German director Michael Laub, for whome she wrote Total Slammer Masala. “The play never came to India but travelled all over Australia and Europe. I love Laub’s style. He is such an avant garde. His style is never to work on a story, but, to take up a theme and work upon that,” she adds.

After, “pushing herself” to write more poems, there was no looking back for this lover of Sufi music and writings. “Then, I decided to get my poetry book published. As a result View From The Web was born, followed by Pickling Season,” informs Makhija. Her poem with the same title (Pickling Season) also won the BBC World Prize and talks about how relations and pickles are so similar. “They both sour, they both are so much fun much as long as you preserve them in the right vessel!” she describes.

But, Makhija has a remorse. According to her, poetry is hardly anyone’s choice these days. “As a writer, you constantly need to push yourself to write and secondly, there is a niche reader of poetry,” she concedes.

And, as if on a natural instinct, she gets back to her favourite topic - Pune. “My granny stayed here. During my initial years in Pune, I was so fascinated by the way she conducted herself. I have dedicated most of my books to her,” she fondly recalls.

The Egyptian Nobel Prize winner, who died Wednesday, created narrative art "that applies to all mankind."

Naguib Mahfouz became the first Arab writer to win the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. Mahfouz, a Cairene so devoted to his tumultuous city that at 78 he'd spent exactly six days outside Egypt - three in Yugoslavia and three in Yemen - lived and wrote as a cosmopolitan who never let ideology keep him from depicting Egypt's realities and hypocrisies.

Teased about his lack of travel, he jabbed back: "All that we do as writers and philosophers is the study of human nature. And it is one, in any place."

His 1,500-page Cairo Trilogy, a multigenerational depiction of the city's middle-class from post-World War I to the early '50s, resembles the 19th-century European novel in form. He once said that it treats "the struggle between great and burdensome traditions on the one hand, and freedom in its various political and intellectual forms on the other."

But Mahfouz's works also offer orgies on Nile houseboats, corrupt officials, cynical politics, nascent feminism, covert Westernization, and a cinematic style reflective of a man who wrote about 30 film scripts and at one time directed Egypt's State Cinema Organization.

For much of his career, Mahfouz exemplified Egyptian openness to European culture, to the work of thinkers such as Darwin, Marx and Freud, while also espousing a Sufi-influenced belief in democracy.

In times of terror and disharmony, a desire to help the mind break free of all chaos resulted in the birth of Ruhaniyat, a live music festival of Sufi poetry and music. Serving as a platform for folk artists from all over the country, Ruhaniyat has been received very well by audiences in the past.

The second volume of this compilation addresses world peace and liberation of the soul through surrender to devotion.

The compilation opens with Yu Ssuhan chhadan, a form of Sufianaa Mausiqi from Kashmir. One can sense that the song address the issue of harmony immediately as Ghulam Mohammad Saz Nawaz lends his vocals to a song worded by Hindu poetess Lalleshwari Devi.

Laalu Fakir takes the listener to ancient Bengal with his Dotaara Bhajo mursheeder kodom, a simple yet beautiful folk melody. Brothers Nanak and Manak from Punjab show the skill and finesse of Punjabi folk with a soulful rendering Aa sanwal mere.

The Hyderabad gharana of music is brought to life by Iqbal Hussain in Kaise kahoon sakhi as he introduces the rich genre of Qawwali that picks up tremendous pace toward the end of the composition. Saint Kabir’s poetry is rendered in a free flowing style backed by powerful Rajasthani folk instruments as Kulcham and Jameela Bai sing his hyms with much vigour.

One of the most powerful anthems in a Qawwali mask, Deedar tere dar ka is dedicated to Khwaja Moinudden. Distinctly different from the other Qawwali on the album, this one is of a subtler yet equally energetic character.

The listener couldn’t have asked for a better way to end this wonderful compilation as Parvathy Baul strums her Ektaara, blending it beautifully with her unique voice in Tore rang dilo. One of the few remaining women to practice Baul, Parvathy’s voice is rich with skill and emotion that is bound to touch the listener with its unforced brilliance. Scoring higher than its predecessor, this compilation is sure to cut across boundaries of religion and devote itself to the true cause of spiritual and folk music.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Sikhism, the world’s fifth-largest organized religion, has more than 20 million followers. Many thousands live in New York City. We can spot Sikh men on the street by their turbans and upswept moustaches. And many of us will recall that two decades ago Sikhs were at the center of the news when the Indian Army stormed the Golden Temple at Amritsar, killing hundreds of Sikhs, and the brutal campaign of oppression against the ethnic minority group which followed.

But what about Sikhism itself? Few Westerners have even basic information.

How many people are aware that it was conceived as a universalist, open-door religion?

Or that its view of society was radically egalitarian? Or that the Adi Granth, far from being full of sectarian dos and don’ts, is a bouquet of poetic songs, blending the fragrances of Hindu ragas, Muslim hymns and Punjabi folk tunes into a music of spiritual astonishment?

This is precisely the information delivered by the small and absolutely beautiful show titled “I See No Stranger: Early Sikh Art and Devotion” at the Rubin Museum of Art in Chelsea. Vivid but concentrated, it presents, mostly through paintings, a culture’s version of its own origins, the image of history shaped by hard work, pluralistic politics and mysticism.

Sikhism was founded at the end of the 15th century in northern India, when a young boy named Nanak had a Revelation. It led him to believe that God was a formless spiritual force shared by all religions, and that social ranks based on faith, class, caste, gender or race were illusory. Unity was reality. The Other was just another. “I see no stranger, I see no enemy, I look upon all with good will,” is how Sikhi phrases it.

Eager to share His vision, Guru Nanak took to the road, accompanied by a Muslim musician named Mardana, who played the stringed instrument called a rabab. Together they traveled, according to official accounts of Guru Nanak’s life, from Sri Lanka to Afghanistan, and west to Baghdad and Mecca, composing and singing devotional songs as they went.

They lived at a high devotional moment. The mystical brand of Islam called Sufism was in full flower, as was the corresponding Bhakti movement on Hinduism. Saints of all sorts and sects wandered northern India, bumping into one another, filling the subcontinent with love. Orthodox thinking was turned inside out. Hierarchies were up-ended. Students taught and teachers learned. The name Sikh — pronounced 'sik' with an enunciated H at the end — comes from a Sanskrit word for 'disciple'.

The exhibition, organized by the art historian B. N. Goswamy of Panjab University, and Caron Smith, chief curator of the Rubin Museum, conveys something of the flavor of all this through dozens of miniature paintings in Hindu and Mughal court styles illustrating the life of Guru Nanak Dev Ji Maharaj as He came to be called. In them He emerges as a figure of commonsensical wit, unassuming piety, superhuman power and increasing physical bulk.

He’s a trim, soft-faced schoolboy in one 18th-century painting, standing in class and holding out a writing board — it looks like a boxy camera — to a teacher. Already by this time Guru Nanak has been lecturing His parents on the Bhagavad-Gita and writing metaphysical verse. Some of these poems, we are meant to assume, are on the writing board. And we know his confounded teacher will give him an A for Amazing.

Another picture shows the adult Guru Nanak asleep on the floor of a mosque in Mecca, with his feet pointed, in a scandalous breach of religious etiquette, toward the Kaaba, God’s house, the holy of holies. When an outraged mullah tries to drag Him around into reverse position, the Kaaba turns too. The lesson: no direction is unhallowed, because God is everywhere.

In a third painting, Guru Nanak, now in stout middle age sits with his book of hymns under a tree. Mardana, tuning up nearby, stares off at the sky. From the left a princely figure, stiff-backed and poker-faced, approaches on horseback to pay homage. Clearly the meeting is a significant one, but nobody seems very into it, or even aware that anyone else is there.

The painting is paired in the show with the workshop drawing, produced by a master artist, that served as its model. The contrast is striking. In the drawing the prince, far from being restrained, practically levitates from his saddle with ardor and leans toward Guru Nanak as if drawn to a magnet. Mardana plays and sings with fervor. It is in the drawing, rather than in the painting, that the Guru Nanak Effect, so evident in poems and songs, comes through.

The Soul-Light of Guru Nanak took nine other forms, and each built on what He had begun. The fourth, Guru Ram Das, established Amritsar as the pre-eminent Sikh pilgrimage site. The next, Guru Arjan Dev, completed the Golden Temple there, built on a platform in the center of a sacred pool. He compiled Guru Nanak’s beautiful poetry, along with others by Hindu and Muslim saints, to create the Ad Granth.

Up to this point, at the very beginning of the 17th century, Sikh history had been peaceful enough despite internal frictions. The site of Amritsar was a gift outright from the Mughal emperor, Akbar, a spiritual seeker and social philosopher who ruled much of India and was admiring of Sikhism’s multicultural character. But after Akbar’s death, rapport with the Mughals disintegrated.

In 1606 his son, Jahangir, an observant Muslim, imprisoned and ordered the martyrdom of Guru Arjan Dev. When the next Guru was also jailed, the Sikhs adopted a stance of defensive militarism and a new social ideal: the soldier-saint. The 10th Guru Govind Singh, formalized this collective identity in 1699 when he established Sikh initiation and codified a the symbols and physical identity.

Guru Govind Singh also took the crucial step of designating the Divine Hymns enshrined in the Adi Granth, as the next, last, and eternal Guru, under the honorific title of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji Maharaj. Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji has incalculable charisma, a sentient being, enthroned on cushions, swathed in rich fabrics, and handled with tender, punctilious deference. Reciting or singing from Guru Sahib is the defining act of the Sikh worship. So intense is Guru Ji's sanctity that, while a throne has been prepared for Guru Ji in the show, Guru Granth Sahib remains physically absent.

Absence can of course have a presence of its own, as modern Sikh history does in this exhibition. An earlier show, “The Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms,” organized in London in 1999, focused on Sikhism from the British colonial period onward, tracing the entwined political and religious developments that led to, among other things, the calamities of 1984 in India.

The Rubin Museum has late material too, including a splendid set of British-influenced 19th-century drawings of craftsmen at work, and a series of formal portraits of Sikh warrior-chiefs.

All-apparent, are the poetry and music that pervade and orchestrate the Sikh view of the world. Traditional hymns play softly in the gallery. A rabab is on display. Certain paintings have the gentle, doleful lilt of evening ragas; others jump and twitch with a beat. And running through everything, like the harmonium’s beginningless-endless voice, are the words of Gurbani:

Wonderful is sound

Wonderful is wisdom

Wonderful is life

Wonderful its distinctions

Wonderful is praise

Wonderful is eulogy

Wonderful the Presence

One sees in the present

O wonder-struck am I to see wonder upon wonder.

“I See No Stranger: Early Sikh Art and Devotion” remains at the Rubin Museum of Art, 150 West 17th Street, Chelsea, (212) 620-5000, through Jan. 29.

Arab philosophy is the theme of the first class in the course 'Panorama of Arab Culture', which will approach many aspects of the Arab world, like history, current affairs and influences in the West. The philosophy doctor by the University of São Paulo, Miguel Attie, is going to present an historic account of the Arab philosophers of ancient times.

The course is promoted by the Institute of Arab Culture (Icarabe) and has duration of three months. Classes start today (18) and will be held every Monday at the Arab Chamber Space, in São Paulo.

According to the coordinator of today's class, Safa Jubran, who is a professor of Arab literature and language at USP, Attie will present an historic account of Arab philosophers of ancient times, making links to Greek philosophy. He plans on showing also that the philosophical thinking and culture of the West were influenced by the Arabs, like he related in his book "Falsafa - Philosophy Amongst the Arabs".

As well as Attie's class, Safa will also coordinate the ninth lesson, on contemporary Arab poetry, taught by the USP professor, Michel Sleiman, and the eleventh class, on Arab immigration and culture in the novel "The Brothers", by Milton Hatoum, which she translated to Arabic. "As coordinator I will introduce the professors and raise some questions on the theme discussed in class," said Safa.

The course will have three main themes: the Arabs contribution to knowledge, the history and current affairs of the Arab world and the cultural repercussions of the Arabs. According to the president of the Icarabe, Soraya Smaili, there is demand of people interested in knowing more about the Arab world, therefore the institute decided to set up the course. About 80 people are enrolled to participate and there are no more open positions.

The next class of the course will be held on the 25th and will be on Arab philosophers. It will be divided in two parts: "Arabs and Mathematics" and "Arab Philosophers and Sufism". Coordinated by the USP professor, Francisco Miraglia, the first lecture will be by the USP professor Oscar Abdounour and, the second, by Sylvia Leite, also from USP.

Other themesThe course will have 13 classes in all, of two and a half hours each. As well as Arab philosophy, the classes will approach themes like sciences, chemistry, literature, poetry, dance, music, art and architecture, the history of the Crusades, nationalism of the twentieth century, disqualification of Arab culture and its ideological role.

The Icarabe has the aim of promoting Arab culture in all its historic, social and humanist aspects. Since the beginning of its activities, in 2004, the institute already held many lectures, debates and photography exhibits.

In many parts of the Muslim world, traditional Muslims are more successful than liberal Muslims in offering an alternative to radical Islam.

In a recent talk at the Singapore-based Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, the Malaysian scholar of Islam, Dr Farish Noor, painted an unencouraging picture of the future of Islam in Southeast Asia. He argued that liberal Muslim groups in the region such as Malaysia’s Sisters in Islam (SIS) and Indonesia’s Liberal Islam Network (JIL) were obsolete, and that the Muslim ground has shifted towards the Islamists. These views, expressed by someone deemed as a liberal himself, deserve closer scrutiny.

Failure of liberal Muslim groupsLiberal Muslim groups grew in prominence against the backdrop of the growing influence of radical Islamists. Liberal Muslim groups postured themselves as alternative voices of Islam, which are moderate, intellectual and acceptable to the West. However, recent trends in Southeast Asia have shown the failure of these groups. Most Indonesians and Malaysian Muslims shun their perspectives due to the liberals’ perceived heretical views and beliefs. For instance, the action by Muslim feminist Amina Wadud to lead a Friday prayer congregation of over 100 men and women in the Episcopal cathedral of St John the Divine and the support she received from liberal groups in the region drew a public outcry from Muslims all around the world. While the Muslim masses may not necessarily reject some of the views of the liberals such as on the separation of state and religion, these issues are lost as the Muslim masses focus their attention instead on the liberals’ supposed heretical beliefs.

Another often-heard criticism of the liberals is that they are in cahoots with Western governments to destroy Islam. The financial support they receive from Western governments and funding agencies further strengthen this perception. In addition, liberal groups confine themselves to organizing seminars and conferences catering to scholars and liberal activists, which have little or no impact on the larger Muslim populace. They have also been unable to build up grassroots networks. This can be contrasted with the highly networked and connected radical Islamist groups with their extensive range of social services. At the same time, the failure of the liberals to react appropriately to contemporary developments affecting the Muslim World has tainted their image further. Farish Noor highlighted the reluctance of liberal groups to condemn Western governments for their policies in the Middle East as an example of the failure of these groups to understand the Muslim ground.

The attention Western government and media give to these groups seems to indicate that liberal Islam is seen as a potential resource for cushioning the Muslim world from its more militant and fundamentalist interpreters. The West has unfortunately placed its stakes with the wrong groups. The question one should then ask is whether the Muslim world has been lost to the radical Islamists. Perhaps not.

Traditional Islam as an antidote to radical ideasIn many parts of the Muslim World today, groups of moderate scholars and activists are working the ground to educate Muslims against the dangers of radicalism. They are promoting a brand of Islam that many Muslims have forgotten due to the effects of the legalistic interpretation of Islam. This brand of Islam is “traditional Islam.” As early as 1987, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a leading traditional Muslim scholar proposed that traditional Islam could be a remedy to the challenge of Muslim extremism. Traditional Islam loosely defined is the understanding of Islam in terms of creed (aqidah), jurisprudence (fiqh) and self-purification (tasawwuf), that has been adhered to by the overwhelming majority of not only Muslim scholars, but Muslims in general.

Traditional Islam entails recognizing that Islam is a living tradition that has been faithfully transmitted to each succeeding generation. Traditional Muslims practice many distinct versions of spirituality called "remembrance of God," or “zikr,” which may involve prayer, chanting or silent meditation. At the same time, they emphasize the importance of the “Sunnah” (practices of the Prophet). One of the strongest manifestations of traditional Islam is Sufism. Traditional Muslims do not perceive Islamic tradition as being conservative and cast in stone. While they regard the principles of Islam as permanent and enduring, they see Islamic tradition as fluid and changing such that it can accommodate changes in a society. Traditional Muslims have however been wrongly criticized as heretical by radical Islamists, especially by the Wahhabis. Yet despite these criticisms, traditional Muslims have proven their resilience to withstand such attacks and continue to represent the silent majority of Muslims. Since 9/11, traditional Muslims all round the world have ceased to remain silent and are working the ground to counter the threat of radical Islamists.

Unlike liberal Islamic groups, traditional Muslim groups have strong grassroots support through their network of mosques, neighborhood clinics, schools and charitable services. At the same time, others are involved in organizing conferences and seminars as well as writing books to teach the Muslim masses about Islam and counter extremist thoughts that have been dominating Muslim public discourse. They are also not averse to the West and emphasize the need for mutual respect, interaction, and cooperation between Muslims and the West.

The ‘middle way’ projectIn the United Kingdom, traditional Muslims have come together to initiate The Radical Middle Way project. The project seeks to combat ignorance by spreading and empowering arguments for the ‘middle way’ and by the consolidation of the mainstream Muslim community. In doing so, traditional Muslim scholars have gone to the grassroots level to organize talks, seminars and other activities to educate British Muslim youth the correct understanding of Islam. Perhaps, their greatest achievement is in their ability to counter the viewpoints of radical Muslim groups in the UK such as the Al-Muhajiroun and in some cases even convincing members of this group to adopt a more moderate stance.

In Singapore, it is also traditional Muslim scholars such as Ustaz Ali Mohamed, chairman of Khadijah mosque and Ustaz Tengku Fouzy, an increasingly popular Muslim Sufi scholar, who are in the forefront of various efforts at countering radical Islamist ideology. Besides being involved in the Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG), a group set up to reform the Jemaah Islamiyah detainees, they have also been involved in various public forums and lectures to educate the Muslim populace on a wide array of issues such as the concept of jihad, terrorism and the recent Arab-Israeli conflict. Their message is a simple one - Islam does not condone violence and one has to use “hikmah” (which refers to the highest possible level of wisdom by a Muslim) in making decisions. Efforts by activists of mosques such as the Abdul Aleem Siddiqui mosque, which is closely linked to traditional Islam, to organize talks and conferences catered to the younger segment of the Muslim populace is commendable. The attendance of large numbers of young Muslims at the recent Second International Conference on Islamic Spirituality organized by the mosque reflect the ability of the traditional Muslim activists to galvanize and subsequently influence younger Muslims to adopt a less legalistic and more pluralistic form of Islam.

In the broader context, the pluralism and moderation of traditional Islam may indeed play a significant role in the ongoing transformation of the Muslim world. In the ummah-wide struggle for the soul of the religion, and for the restoration of pluralistic Muslim thought, traditional Islam seems to offer an alternative. To ensure that this struggle is not won by the extremists, it is important that support and attention be given to the efforts of traditional Muslims and that governments seek the advice of traditional Muslims scholars in formulating their policies on Islam.

While the Pope is being forced to apologize to the Islamic community, let’s not ignore the news sent from Rome by Yasemin Taskin of the “Sabah” newspaper. Published under the title, “The Vatican’s striking report on Turkey: There’s no secularism in Turkey,” the text of the news in the newspaper is very different from the copy on the Internet. I’ll refer to the Internet copy because it’s more comprehensive.

(...)

There are other interesting details in the report and they hint that the Pope approached his visit to Turkey more as a statesman than as a spiritual leader.

“Although Turkey expelled Islam from the political realm, it sprouted in civil society. Turgut Ozal’s being brought to power from Sufi circles with the approval of the military and America also took place in this period. Within political Islam and with Sufi leanings, the ruling JDP takes its place as a movement different from the Arabs’ understanding of political Islam. Describing itself as democratic and pro-Western, the JDP is creating an interesting political experiment. Hated by the Arabs, the “Christian” West can establish a dialogue with this party. The West can create a common area with the JDP based on great political themes. Islam fundamentalists see the Turkish model as its greatest enemy. It can be understood that they would like to end this (JDP) experiment with the bomb power. There’s a great probability that there will be followers of the Erdogan model outside of Turkey. This is extremely dangerous for those who don’t want dialogue between the Islamic world and the West.”

Let’s not ask the question, “How can a state report be leaked to the outside?” Maybe that’s one of the calculated moves.

The important thing is which square Turkey occupies on the chessboard and which figure it represents; let’s think about this a little.

This report is submitted to the Congress by the Department of State in compliance with Section 102(b) of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998. The law provides that the secretary of state, with the assistance of the ambassador at large for international religious freedom, shall transmit to Congress "an Annual Report on International Religious Freedom supplementing the most recent Human Rights Reports by providing additional detailed information with respect to matters involving international religious freedom."

Iran: The constitution declares the "official religion of Iran is Islam, and the doctrine followed is that of Ja'fari (Twelver) Shi'ism." The Government restricts freedom of religion.

There was a further deterioration of the extremely poor status of respect for religious freedom during the reporting period, most notably for Baha'is and Sufi Muslims. The country's religious minorities include Sunni and Sufi Muslims, Baha'is, Zoroastrians, Jews, and Christians. There were reports of imprisonment, harassment, intimidation, and discrimination based on religious beliefs.

Government actions and rhetoric created a threatening atmosphere for nearly all religious minorities, especially Baha'is and Sufi Muslims. To a lesser extent, Zoroastrians, evangelical Christians, and the small Jewish community were also targets of government harassment. Government-controlled media, including broadcasting and print, intensified negative campaigns against religious minorities – particularly the Baha'is – following the June 2005 election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The U.S. government makes clear its objections to the Government's harsh and oppressive treatment of religious minorities through public statements, support for relevant U.N. and nongovernmental organization (NGO) efforts, as well as diplomatic initiatives towards states where religious freedom is a concern. Since 1999 the Secretary of State has designated Iran as a "Country of Particular Concern" (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act for its particularly egregious violations of religious freedom.

The country has an area of approximately 631,660 square miles, and its population was an estimated 69 million. The population was approximately 98 percent Muslim, of which an estimated 89 percent were Shi'a and 8 percent were Sunni, mostly Turkmen, Arabs, Baluchs, and Kurds living in the southwest, southeast, and northwest. Although there are no official statistics of the size of the Sufi Muslim population, some reports estimated between two to five million people practice Sufism compared to approximately 100,000 before 1979.

Sufi Muslims faced an increasing "demonization" campaign. In September 2005, Ayatollah Hossein Nouri-Hamedani, as Islamic scholar in Qom, reportedly called for a crackdown on Sufi groups, labeling them a "danger to Islam".

Five months later an attack occurred that involved police and paramilitary forces. During the riots, the paramilitaries distributed leaflets calling Sufis enemies of Islam, and the Qom governor accused the Sufis of having ties to foreign countries and creating instability.

Articles attacking Sufis were printed in government-controlled, national newspapers, such as the Jomhouri-ye Eslami and Kayhan. On February 14, 2006, a Kayhan article quoted senior clerics in Qom as saying that Sufism should be eradicated in the city. During the period covered by this report, several anti-Sufi books were published.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Thousands of people gathered on the occasion of first death anniversary of prominent and well known Sufi singer Ghulam Ahmad Sofi who was famous throughout his life for reciting great poetry of Sufi saints of Jammu and Kashmir state.

The function was organized by the Department of Information and Public Relations at Rainawari near his ancestral grave yard. The poetic life history in a artistic description was engraved by the cultural academy on his grave. Amidst Fateh-e-Khani by large number of people.

The Director Information and Public Relations on this occasion said that Sofi who was known for reciting Sufiyana poetry ‘Shashrang’ of Sofi poet, poetry of ‘Suchkral, Shamsfaquir, Naimasahib’ who all belonged to ‘Sharakhas’ historically known as city of seven bridges. He said that vicinity of all seven bridges gave birth to great scholar saints and intellectuals, philosophers and persons of prominence.

He said that it is better that this city is termed with its original name Sharakhas in order to paid tributes to all those who belonged to this place. The people who were present on the occasion appreciated poetic verses of Zarief Ahmed which were inscribed by the cultural academy on a special stone near the grave of Sofi singer. He said that he was a employee of Information Department for long period.

The presence of large number of people from 4 O’ clock till mid night was clear indication of the popularity of great saint. The organizers of Sofi Saint Committee appreciated role of Information and Public Relations department for highlighting Sufiyana poetry and contribution of great Sufiyana saints whose poetry is getting new prominence in the State.

The Department of Information and Public Relations had continuously during last two years organized in all parts of J&K State. Thousands of Sufiyana, mehfils even Sofiana festival up to the level of India and Pakistan was organized in SKICC, Varmul, Pahalgam where great and reputed Sufiana singers of two countries participated. The 20,000 lovers of Sufiyana participated in 3-day festival. The highest gathering of the people to the extent of 45,000 people was witnessed at Narwara on the occasion of Ahad Zargar Day organized by Information Department.

Similarly, at Danamazar at Safakadal, 15000 to 20000 people participated in Rahmandars death anniversary. Large gathering were also witnessed at Hazrat Bul-Bul-Shah shrine, Rehaman Memorial Day Jamalata, Nayama Sahib Day at Habbakadal, Lala Sahib Day at Bandipora and thousands of such occasions in J&K and Ladakh which were organized by the department.

All the speakers while speaking on Sofi memorial day today said that the presence of such a large gathering on this day when Sofi singer is being remembered is clear proof that Sofi poetry is touching new dimensions of popularity in the State.

Clothed in wide, white skirt-robes and camel-haired cylindrical headdresses representing the gravestone and the shroud of the human ego, the Dervishes stand and prepare to whirl, their eyes closed, minds transfixed.

Ottoman court music of flutes, string and percussion play in the background as the costumed men begin their tightly structured mystical trance. As they start to spin in circles, their arms unfold; the right arm lifts towards God and the skies while the left arm turns toward the earth. The ritualistic whirling dance can last hours.

This seven-century-old ceremony performed by the Mevlevi Order of Turkey (known in the West as the Whirling Dervishes) is one of the most exquisite spiritual rituals performed in the world today. The highly choreographed ritual, known as Sema, is so complex and perplexing that it has been widely studied in the dance, religion and culture fields of academia.

For one evening only, inquisitive Twin Citians of any faith and cultural background will have the opportunity to witness this sacred ritual performed at the University's Ted Mann Concert Hall.

The inspiration for the ritual is based on a scientifically recognized condition: The fundamental purpose of existence is to revolve, and that every object and living being is interconnected through a cycle of revolution. Blood circulates in the body. Planets follow orbits. And humans and beasts are born of the earth only to live, die and return to it. Revolution is the ultimate worldly process.

The Dervishes seek to consciously engage in the shared revolution of all beings through their spinning movements. They slip into a trancelike state, evoking a spiritual ascent into a shared consciousness with God.

The Whirling Dervishes of Turkey are Sufi Muslims, and throughout the centuries they have widely contributed to Turkish customs, history and culture.

Founded by 13th-century philosopher and poet Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, Sufism is a moderate branch of Islam. Through the teachings of Rumi and the Quran, its followers seek to promote universal values of justice while seeking a direct experience with God and an ultimate reality.

It isn't every day that such a world-renowned ceremony is performed here in the Twin Cities. The Mevlevi Order has been performing in Europe and North America since only the 1970s. Based in Rumi's hometown of Konya, Turkey, the Dervishes travel the world only sporadically, performing the Sema to audiences numbering in the thousands.

The performance is sponsored by the Northern Lights Society, a local nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting interfaith dialogue, understanding and tolerance through social interaction and the exchange of ideas. Yasir Bilgin, the interfaith dialogue coordinator for the Northern Lights Society, stressed the importance of such performances that unite people across the religious spectrum, especially in turbulent times when common ground can be hard to find.

The Whirling Dervishes represent more than just an intricate ceremony of spiritual devotion. They are symbolic of universal, humanistic ideals - such as peace, love and tolerance.

Sufi music concerts may run to packed houses, but many sufi shrines present a contrasting picture.

It is ironic that while so many people are enchanted by the music, few know about the Awliyas (Sufi saints) who find considerable mention in it, connoisseurs of Sufism say. Delhi is dotted with historic monuments including scores of 'mazaars'. There is the famous dargah of Nizamuddin and lesser-known mazaars of Bakhtiyar Kaki and Naseeruddin Mahmud Chiragh that co-exist. The latter two present a picture of neglect, they say.

There are still others, which are maintained by people who live around them oblivious of their history. "Chiragh's dargah has borne the brunt of urban living. Post-partition, ignorant settlers in the area marginalised the dargah. Today, it's in a poor state," says Sunil Kumar, Reader, Department of History, Delhi University. "Bakhtiyar Kaki's tomb is in no better condition, he says. Known as Roshan 'Chirag-e-Dehli' - the illuminated lamp of Delhi, Chirag's name finds mention in many sufi renditions.

"In many places, the locals who maintain the 'mazaars' do not even know the name of the saint who is buried there, except for some miracles which are attributed to the saint," says Kumar.

On the other hand, there are also some shrines maintained by locals which witness regular prayer sessions; they are found to be in a good condition. Sufi dargahs are visited by both hindus and muslims: the maintenance of such mazaars and dargahs can be attributed to the intiatives of the local people.

"Most of Delhi's sufi shrines are tended by locals who stay in the vicinity. The absence of any governmental incentive doesn't deter them, because they see some mystic value in medieval shrines," says medieval historian SZH Jafferi of Delhi University.

The government should come forward and take affirmative steps for the restoration of these shrines, he says.

Delhiites need to be made aware of aspects of Sufism other than just the music. There is a lot more to the religion that can delight followers. For starters, Sufism welcomes into its fold, people of any caste, creed or religion, he says.

The need for preserving Delhi's Sufi historical wealth needs to be realised fast lest many symbols of the city's glorious past should fade away into oblivion, historians say.

Jiya dhadak (Kalyug), Ya Ali (Gangster), Chaand sifaarish (Fanaa) and Mitwa (KANK)... And if you thought that was all, Nagesh Kukunoor’s next, Dor, has a winner in the making with Allah hoo. Another musical, Zindaggi Rocks, has Sufi-meets-rock in one of the album’s racy and already popular songs Rabbi. Sufi music has entered mainstream.

Sufism is a mystic tradition of Islam and songs based on Sufi themes are perennial chart favourites, lingering on long after others have faded away. Remember Chaiyya Chaiyya (Dil Se)? Based on Bulleh Shah’s Tere ishq ne nachaya kar thaiyya thaiyya, the song is not merely remembered for Malaika Arora Khan and Shah Rukh Khan’s gyrations atop a moving train, but also made an overnight star of the singer, Sukhwinder.

And then there is Al lah ke bande (Waisa Bhi Hota Hai - II), that made Kailash Kher a household name. And the latest Sufi sensation, singer Rabbi Sher gill, is all set to debut as a music director with Delhi Heights later this year. So what makes the Sufi strain so sought-after in Bollywood?

Music director Anu Malik (who prefers to call himself Aanuu these days), the man behind Rabbi, pegs his Mehboob Mere track in Fiza as a take off point for experimentation of Sufi music in recent times. “I’ve again given Sufi a current connect by fusing rock essentials with the Sufiana andaz in Rabbi.” But Sufi music made inroads long before Fiza (2001), with the AR Rahman-composed Dil Se (1998) and Taal (1999). And it took off from the Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan-wave that ruled the charts in the mid-90s.

However, of late, songs with Sufi influences have become de rigueur in almost every film being released these days, irrespective of the genre, whether it is a romantic Gangster or a cerebral Corporate. “Sufi is in the DNA of the Indian sub-continent,” says producer Mukesh Bhatt, whose Vishesh Films has at least one Sufi number in most films since Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s chartbuster, Mann ki lagan (Paap). “The essence of a Sufi song can be brought out only by a Sufi singer though good lyrics are essential,” he says.

So what makes Sufi rock? “Sufi songs equate the love of God to that of the beloved. And as a theme song in the background at a poignant moment, it takes the music to a phenomenal level,” says Mukesh. Adds Kailash, “Sufi songs have a universal appeal as they are intense love songs. The lyrics are traditional, but my sound appeals mainly to the 20-30 age group.” As Anu says, “If you can make it groove-worthy keeping intact its lyrical core, the result rocks.” It sure does.

The land of Kathak would be a witness to the three flavours of dance- contemporary, classic, sufi- coming together, as the Rashtriya Kathak Sansthan’s annual programme, Virasat, would be held on September 22, 23 and 24. The programme would feature the likes of choreographer and contemporary kathak dancer Madhu Natraj Hery matching her skills with traditionalist like Shovana Narain and TV actress and Kathak dancer, Prachee Shah.

Giving details about the programme, the secretary of the Sansthan, Sarita Srivastava, said the programme, for the first time, will bring together three facets of Kathak. ‘‘Traditional kathak has always been favoured by everyone as this dance form, which started from the temples, still gets a lot of patronage. Then, slowly it took on a sufi form and now, it is undergoing a metamorphosis, thanks to the experimentation being done on it. So we would be showcasing all these three forms.”

The three-day function will feature popular TV actress Prachee Shah presenting traditional kathak of the Jaipur gharana. Along with Shah, bureaucrat and dancer Shovana Narain would be presenting the sufi form of kathak. The contemporary form of dance with various other forms fused in would be presented by Madhu Natraj Hery from Bangalore.

The sansthan would also be giving a chance to budding dancers from Lucknow all the three days. While the traditional presentation is being choreographed by Akansha Srivastava and Ishani Agarwal, the sufi dance presentation would be choreographed by Archana Tiwari and Gunjal Dikshit. Gaurav Sharma would be choreographing the contemporary dance piece.

The golden dusty sand dunes, colorful ethnic outfits, soulful folk music mixed with competent performances makes way for Nagesh Kukunoor's 'Dor'. Fresh from the spectacular success of 'Iqbal', the talented director forays into land of ethnic and beautiful Rajasthan in 'Dor'.

Once again it will be successful combo of actor Shreya Talpade and director Nagesh Kukunoor in 'Dor' with Ayesha Takia and Gul Panag in lead roles. 'Dor' is a women-oriented film that shows the deglamourized Ayesha Takia as village belle whereas Gul Panag will don urbanized character. The trendy music composer duo Salim-Suleiman unravels their unexplored music prowess in this album by delivering brilliant Indian classical music. Salim-Suleiman did a splendid job in 'Iqbal' with chartbuster tracks "Aankhon Mein Sapna" and "Aashayein" and promises another competent show in 'Dor'.

Actor Shreyas Talpade's debut performance of deaf-mute boy in 'Iqbal' won him accolades and 'Dor' will be another feather in his cap. It will be first time that Ayesha Takia will be doing deglamourized role in this heart warming social saga. Ex-Miss India-turned-actress Gul Panag has lackluster journey in Bollywood with offbeat film 'Dhoop' and disastrous flop 'Jurm'. This film holds importance in her career to have stronghold in the film industry. 'Dor' is exclusively conceived to cater class or niche audience, so box-office expectations will be low and grim. 'Dor' music has the gloss and fragrance of colorful ethnic folk music of Rajasthan with a strong feel of Indian classical music. The original soundtracks of 'Dor' can be heard on Universal.

ALLAH HOO : In grandeur of "Allah" (God Almighty), a sacred Sufi "Qawaali" "Allah Hoo" comes with conventional set up of classical music. After Himesh Reshammiya, it's composer-turned-singer Salim Merchant holding mike and displaying his Sufi singing flair. The soundtrack comes with traditionally pious lyrics, fine usage of "tabla", "shehnai" and piano beats in background. In the present context where Sufi music is gaining momentum the soundtrack is likely to get acceptance from mature listeners. Salim-Suleiman's fine mixing of keyboard generated trendy music with classical musical set is brilliant. In Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's immortal melodies, "Allah Hoo" as one of the precious rendition and has been plagiarized many times in films and pop albums.

'Dor' proves another path-breaking success for director Nagesh Kukunoor and music composers -- Salim-Suleiman. In an era where hip-hop, rap and Sufi pop is ruling the charts they have dared enter the territories of quality musical entertainment. The album deserves applause for being ethical, folksy, classical and pure in terms of content and style. It will have limited takers from class audiences but will be counted as the finest classical composition in recent times.

A drum (its generic name in Persian, tabireh) is a percussion instrument, a hollow object with a membrane stretched over one (some) end(s), played by beating with hands or the sticks. In Iran (formerly known as Persia) different drums are played both in art and regional music. In this article, the author will introduce the main drums of Persia that are more or less the most popular ones.

Tonbak (Persian goblet drum)Goblet drums are played in different areas, from Asia, Europe and Africa. Among them, tonbak, Arabic darbouka and African djembe are getting popular in the world.

Tonbak, a goblet shaped drum, is the chief drum played in Persian art music, though it is played in folk music too. Also a larger version with the name zarb and a clay body, it is played in zourkhaneh (Persian traditional gymnasium).

The history of tonbak, with the Pahlavi (pre-Islamic language of Persia) name, dombalak, goes back to thousands of years ago.

Tonbak, in the past, was considered an accompaniment instrument. Thanks to great efforts of the late maestro Hossein Tehrani (the father of modern tonbak), people's opinion changed a little bit and this drum had a more important role in Persian art music and was considered as a solo instrument.

Dayereh (Persian frame drum)Frame drums are among the most popular drums played in four corners of the globe.

Dayereh is one of the most popular drums played in folk music of Iran. Different versions of dayereh with different names are played in different regions of Iran.

Perhaps the very well promoted version is the ghaval (Azerbaijani frame drum), the drum played by Azeri singer in the Azerbaijani art (called mugham music) and folk music (called ashighlar music). One of the most notable ghaval players of Iran is the maestro Latif Tahmasebi-zadeh, who promoted the ghaval as the solo drum in Iran and Republic of Azerbaijan.

The history of dayereh, with the Pahlavi name, dareh, goes back to pre-Islamic ages. Dayereh is sometimes played in Persian art music.

Daf (Persian frame drum)Daf, as a drum played in Sufi music of Iran, is one of the most popular drums mentioned in Persian literature by very famous Persian poets such as Rumi and Hafiz. After the establishment of 'Shayda Ensemble', daf was played and popularized by Bijan Kamkar, the daf player who created the modern style of daf, beside the traditional style played in khanghah (Sufi temple).

The history of daf, with the Pahlavi name, dap, goes back to pre-Islamic ages and today, thanks to many daf players it has become that popular and played in different genres of Persian music that it is considered the second national drum of Iran, beside the tonbak that is the first national and the most important drum of Iran.

Dohol (Persian cylindrical drum)Dohol is the also one of the most important drums played in Persian regional music. It is a very loud drum mainly played with drumsticks, in outdoors.

Dohol is the main accompaniment of sorna (Persian oboe), mainly played in festive occasion.

Some versions of dohol are played with hands too.

Naghareh (Persian kettledrums)Naghareh, is also another popular drum, played in different regions of Iran. Its size can vary from very small to huge ones that were tightened on elephant-backs in war fields in order to accompany karna (Persian large sized wind instrument) for the courage of soldiers.

Some believe that tabla (famous Indian drum) is originated in naghareh, Indian dhol (similar to Persian dohol) and pakhawaj (Indian barrel shaped drum).

A total of 60,000 tickets have been sold for the 23 Semah performances that will be held this year in Konya as part of 18-day long celebrations commemorating Rumi.

The number of tickets sold is expected to exceed 100, 000 by the end of September. Culture director for the Konya municipality, Abdussettar Yarar said the popular commemorative activates were extended this year, and added that the 733rd International Commemoration Activities for Rumi (Seb-i Arus)will last one week longer than past celebrations.

Yarar said they are enthusiastically preparing for the ceremonies, and emphasized that this year’s colorful activities will only improve with future performances.

Yarar said in previous years they started ticket sales just a few weeks ahead of the events; however, this year they began promotion and sales immediately after last year’s activities ended on 18 December 2005.

So far, the number of tickets sold has reached about 60,000 and this number continues to increase as the festival date approaches. The venue where the Semah performances are held seats about 2,700 people, and the number of tickets sold has already well exceeded the capacity of the hall where performances will take place.

Yarar said that though he prefers not want to give a specific number when forecasting the number of tickets that will be sold overall, a figure of around 100,000 would not be impossible to reach.

Pagla Kanai (1810-1890), a mystic folk poet and musician, was born to a family of peasants in Nebutola village in Jhenidah. Though he is popular as Pagla Kanai, his original name was Kanai Sheikh. He was a poet with the ability to compose songs spontaneously. He composed what were basically mystical and spiritual songs. The themes of his songs featured topics such as dehotattta(analysis of human form), the transient world, and the mystery of life. He composed songs about Prophet Muhammad (SM) as well as hymns to Krishna. But, Pagla Kanai is popular for developing a Jari form titled Dhuajari, in which an incident is narrated in a rhythmic tone.

The origins of Jarigaan may be traced back to the early 17th century in Bangladesh when poetry was written on the tragic stories of Karbala. However, Pagla Kanai successfully used other myths such as Radha-Krishna, Monosha-mongala as well as contemporary social issues of his time and traditional Baul music in his compositions of Dhuajari.

Through these, Kanai has analysed Sufism, meaning of life and other themes in his songs. In fact, he gave aesthetic presentation of Jarigaan, and subsequently earned a name in history. His songs were once very popular in many areas including Rajshahi, Mymensingh, Tangail, Faridpur, Pabna, Jessore, Kushtia, Khulna, Barisal and others.

A Dhuajari session may also take place between two Jarigaan teams. The teams render songs in a question-answer format. Towards the end, the team members put forward extempore arguments in an effort to prove their opponent wrong.

Pagla Kanai was the lead singer of a troupe. His itinerant group of singers included Kala Chand Bayati, Hakim Shah, Karim Biswas, Indu Biswas and Karamaddi.

But, not much initiative is taken to uphold the tradition. Dr Mazharul Islam included 240 of these songs in his book, Kabi Pagla Kanai. Professor Abul Ahsan Choudhury, M Monsuruddin have also written books on the same subject. Moreover, ministry of Cultural Affairs has built an auditorium adjacent to the shrine of Pagla Kanai, at the remote village of Nebutala, Madhabpur.

Unfortunately this rich tradition is on the verge of extinction. To celebrate his birth anniversary, a few of his followers, mostly above fifty, gather at his shrine and render songs. But, nowadays very few people are interested in Dhuajari. As a result the experts believe that the tradition of Pagla Kanai is fading away.

More than 100,000 people are expected to buy tickets for this year's ceremonies to commemorate Mevlana Jalaladdin Rumi, the father of Sufism.

A senior official from the Konya Culture and Tourism Directorate told the Anatolia news agency that 60,000 prospective ticket buyers had applied to attend the International Commemoration Ceremonies for the 733rd Reunion Anniversary of Mevlana, which will feature 23 sema dance performances this year. The number of ticket seekers was expected to reach at least 100,000 by the end of September.

The ceremonies this year were expanded by a week and will last from Dec. 1-17.

The same official said the Konya Municipality and Selçuk University were working hard to make this year's ceremonies colorful.

The directorate has prepared 10,000 posters announcing the ceremonies in 10 languages. Requests for tickets will be accepted until the end of September. Meanwhile, hotels in Konya have already accepted reservations, bringing them to approximately 70 percent occupancy three months before the start of the ceremonies.

Last November UNESCO included the Mevlevi Sema Ceremony, a spiritual and religious tradition of Sufism, on its list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. UNESCO's decision, which highlighted the whirling dervish dances both in Turkey and on the international platform, is expected to increase tourists to Konya as well as promote the Sufi tradition

Experts say the sema indicates “listening, singing beautifully” in Sufism as well as signifying an act of feeling God and a mystical journey of spiritual ascent through mind and love to "Perfection" or “God.”

In this journey the whirling dervishes symbolically turn towards the truth, grow through love, abandon the ego and all materialistic values of the world, find the truth and arrive at the "Perfect" then return from this spiritual journey with greater maturity, so as to love and to be of service to the whole of creation without discrimination against beliefs, races, classes and nations.

For the first 21 years of my life, all I knew about Afghanistan came from the books I read and the stories my father shared. A writer on Sufi Islamic philosophy, he would tell tales that centered around the beautiful orchards and fountains of Paghman, just outside the capital, where my family is from and to which I longed to return. Other stories featured my great-great-great grandfather Jan Fishan Khan, a warlord who sang fragments of a wild Afghan song, dating to the British invasion of the late 1830s:

"Oh foreigners -- do not attack Kabul. Attacking Kabul is my job!"

All this time I was living in Britain, where the newspapers were telling me of a country under continual attack, devastated by years of war beginning with the Soviet occupation in 1979 and then by the Taliban's oppressive regime. But it was literature and legend that prompted me to begin traveling to Afghanistan 20 years ago -- first as a freelance journalist, then as a documentary filmmaker. It was my father's stories that allowed me to see the beauty of a place that was even then descending into anarchy.

Any introduction to Afghan culture should, of course, start at the top -- with the giant of Persian literature, the Sufi philosopher Jalaluddin Rumi, who hailed from Balkh, which is today in northern Afghanistan, and whose great poetical work, " The Masnavi, " is still quoted verbatim by any Afghans you are likely to meet, be they bus drivers or university professors.

But Afghan culture is hardly stuck in the 13th century. Since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, the artistic energies the regime suppressed have exploded, sometimes in unexpected forms. So now we have Afghanistan's first and only rap star, a diminutive 28-year-old called DJ Besho. He raps in Dari Persian, quotes verses from the Koran and doesn't curse -- but he remains too racy, too Western, for many in a country still reeling from the Taliban's ban on music. And even the 2005 Miss England is, well, Afghan. Hammasa Kohistani, who fled the war in Afghanistan, has scored an elegant victory over the Taliban's repression of women while using her public platform to condemn Western stereotypes of Muslims.

The Afghan film industry suffered intolerable state censorship during the Soviet era, followed by a total ban under the Taliban. One Afghan film editor recalled watching the Taliban methodically destroy an irreplaceable film archive, and when I was undercover in Kabul during that era, one of the spookiest sights that met my eyes was of film and videotape strewn like ticker tape from lampposts and telephone poles.

Now, however, a new Afghan film industry has risen from the wreckage. The first full-length feature film to be made by an Afghan in the Taliban-era -- Siddik Barmak's " Osama " -- won a Golden Globe award in 2004, and deservedly so. Apart from its stunning cinematography, the film is memorable for the performance by Marina Golbahari, the child-heroine, who was discovered by the director while she was begging on the streets. This spontaneous quality is shared by two Iranian-made films about Afghanistan that also make use of non-professional actors: Mohsen Makhmalbaf's " Kandahar " and Marzieh Meshkini's " Stray Dogs. "

Two books by Afghan writers, translated into English, stand out as true literature forged from more than 20 years of war. In addition to Khaled Hosseini's acclaimed " The Kite Runner, " which captures an Afghanistan brutalized by Soviet occupiers, U.S.-sponsored warlords and the repressive yet furtively sexualized Taliban, look to the lesser-known but almost unbearably gripping " Earth and Ashes " by Atiq Rahimi, an Afghan political exile in Paris. In a mere 60 pages, Rahimi tells the story of an Afghan village's destruction by a Russian bomb through the eyes of its sole survivors, an old man and his grandson. Novel, short story, call it what you will -- the prose always hovers on the edge of poetry.

For it is poetry that has always been closest to Afghan hearts. Sadly, much of it echoes Afghanistan's bleak history of war. From Rudyard Kipling's classic 19th-century vision in "The Young British Soldier" --

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

-- to the yearning of Afghanistan's late poet laureate, Khalilullah Khalili, while a refugee from the Soviet occupation:

I am the bitter fruit falling upon the earth.Thus in the clutches of time I remain.O spring of liberty!Your grace, what else it could beBut to render this bitter fruit sweet ?

But here again, the last word should go to Rumi, whose call soars across the centuries, far above strife and war, and beyond the confines of Islamic fanaticism. My favorite translation of Rumi's " I Am the Life of My Beloved " is by my father, Idries Shah, and was published in his book " The Way of the Sufi ":

What can I do, Muslims? I do not know myself.I am no Christian, no Jew, no Magian, no Musulman.Not of the East, not of the West. Not of the land, not of the sea. . . .My place placeless, my trace traceless.Neither body nor soul: All is the life of my Beloved.

(...)The controversy about Vande Mataram has been so ugly that I turned with relief and, indeed, with joy to a truly outstanding programme on the national song on CNN IBN. The programme derived its strength from the fact that it did as little talking as possible, for once, confined to three simple questions put to musicians. After that the music spoke for itself, because it is a beautiful and stirring song in itself and does not need any verbal certificates or angry defenses.

A woman sufi singer from Delhi, popular singer Abhijit from Mumbai, a two-man rock band from Kolkata and a woman who rendered the song's raag Kalyan in Carmatic style gave the song a status, a dignity and an emotional appeal by treating it as a beautiful piece of music in its own right. Both the sufi and the carnatic singer and surprisingly the rock band "Guru" of the young guitar player who gave only the accompaniment a modern twist, rendered the song, in their individual ways but in its original mode - no AR Rahman or Lata Mangeshkar to fiddle about with it. And that is what Vande Mataram is and should remain, and not a political football.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Ahmet Ozhan, one of Turkey’s leading Sufi and folk music singers, was welcomed by a massive audience in Kosovo.

Ozhan had been invited to Kosovo by the Istanbul Foundation.

He sang old and new songs from Turkish Sufi music, accompanied by a performance from the whirling dervishes.

Responding to journalists’ questions before the 4,000-person concert, Ozhan said: “We came here for our brothers to sing Sufi music along with our friends. I am happy to be here with the people of Kosovo. The country is undergoing a healing process. Although we have been away for some time, we want to enjoy being together now. It is a place that I have visited several times over the past 25 years.”

The presence of German soldiers of the KFOR Peace Force at the concert received much notice as well.

By Stephanie Dowrick - The Australian - AustraliaSaturday, September 9, 2006

Richard Schoch's invitation in The Secrets of Happiness is to look backwards rather more often than forwards. The view (and views) he reveals are, however, every bit as enticing. Schoch is an academic, professor of the history of culture at Queen Mary, University of London. He is a confident, gifted writer: a great bringer of reading happiness through his clarity, wit and contagious excitement. He opens his book with the glorious line, "Unhappy is the story of happiness", then keeps up the pace.

His take on happiness is to use it, and our desire for it, as a means, especially as a means to explore some differences and similarities in the great religious philosophical traditions, including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism, while also revisiting the theories of the utilitarians, the Stoics and the Epicureans to illuminate our contemporary confusions.

In his chapters on Christianity and Islam, Schoch focuses largely on Thomas Aquinas and the mystical path of Sufism, respectively. (Within Sufism he is especially interested in the work of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali.)

A man of his 13th-century times, Aquinas believed that true happiness could be found only through grace in the life hereafter. Sufis believe that union with God and the bliss that comes with it is entirely possible in this life through a process of spiritual surrender.

Without losing any of my happiness as I read, I did wonder if this was rather a dubious comparison. Christian mystics have also written extensively of divine union in this life and bliss therefrom. But this is not a book that seeks to create a hierarchy of experiences.

"Happiness," as Schoch most creatively shows, "is less an objective fact to be encountered in the world than an experience to be cultivated by each individual. Thus, we speak not of any single secret of happiness - applicable to everyone - but only of the secrets of happiness, a different one for each person."

The Secrets of Happiness: Three Thousand Years of Searching for the Good Life By Richard Schoch Profile, 228pp, $39.95

By Noopur Tiwari - NDTV.com, New Delhi Television Ltd. - New Delhi,IndiaFriday, September 8, 2006

Active during the Second World War, Noor carried on as the last link between Paris and London even when other agents were captured.Now for the first time the Indian government has paid tribute to this amazing woman.

Noor, spy princess, was the daughter of Hazrat Inayat Khan who introduced Sufism to the West family descendants of Tipu Sultan.She started working for the women's auxiliary British force as a radio operator and then later joined the Special Operations Forces.

Recently, at a small monument in her house near Paris, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee paid tribute to this remarkable woman.

Known as Nora Baker to some and Madeline to others, Noor specialised in dropping agents behind enemy lines. She died at the age of 29 executed by the gestapo."Her story of heroism, bravery and sacrifice will always inspire the younger generation," said Mukherjee.

At Fazal Manzil [which means "house of blessings"; the Khan's house in Suresnes, near Paris], Noor spent most of her childhood and it was in this room that Noor and her brother Vilayat decided they could no longer stay away from the fight against fascism.

Shrabani Basu in her book Spy Princess: The life of Noor Inayat Khan has put together the story of the incredible woman who worked for the resistance as the last link between Paris and London."I started researching her life and it coincided with her files being released by the British government. All her secret files, I put them together the family side and the friends and tried to bring out the story of this incredible woman," said Shrabani Basu, Author.

A harp that stands silently in her house today was her favourite and Noor's friends and family said she had a vivid imagination.

"She was Indian I mean the family grew up here. Her father was a Sufi preacher they used to love dressing in Indian clothes. She wrote in Urdu, spoke Hindi. It was a large joint family they all lived here together and it was a typical Indian family. She played the Veena, she identified with the Indian freedom movement so that's a strong link," said Basu.

Noor was also a writer of children's books and one of her cover names came from one of her own stories.

Many called her a dreamer but she went on to win some of the highest gallantry awards of the battlefield, the British George Cross and the French Croix de Guerre but in India she still remains an unsung heroine.

Monday, November 27, 2006

(...)Somalis are 100% Moslems. Their brand of Islam is Sufism. A Somali journalist Bashir Goth compares Wahabism and Sufism. “Sufism, however, which was the Somali way of Islam and which Wahhabism condemns as a heresy, reaches out to the heart and good sense of all mankind without distinction. Instead of shunning all other faiths and branding them as bogus religions, Sufism sees all faiths as equally valid, following directly God’s words “whosesoever ye turn, there is the face of God.” Where Wahhabism sows hatred and rancor even among Moslems, Sufism preaches sulh-e kull (universal peace) and Mahabbat e-kull (universal love).”

The British and the Italian colonial administrators and the Vatican dotted the country with churches and church run orphanages and tried to convert as many Somalis as possible into Christianity. The American Mennonite mission built and administered some of the best schools in Somalia. Yet Islam prevailed in perfect harmony with Somali culture for 14 centuries in Somalia.(...)

For American Christians who don’t know a Shiite from a Sunni, or an Alawi from a Wahhabi, divisions within Islam can be daunting to decipher. Here’s a simple Who’s Who of a few major groups -- either religious or political -- that claim the Islamic label.

-- Sunni. About 85 percent of Muslims worldwide identify themselves as Sunni, which means “tradition.” Sunnis consider themselves followers of the traditions established by Muhammad and the first two generations that followed him.

-- Shiite. Followers of Shi’a constitute the second-largest group within Islam. The schism between the Sunni and Shiites originated over questions of who should succeed Muhammad’s immediate group of handpicked caliphs. The Shiites favored Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law, as the legitimate successor and believe descendents of Muhammad should rule the Islamic community. (Some political leaders -- both Shiite and Sunni -- have used their supposed descent from Muhammad to shore up their resume, including Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Jordan’s King Hussein and Sheikh Muhammed Hussein Fadlallah of Lebanon’s Hezbollah party.)

-- Sufi. The Sufis are part of a mystical movement that stresses personal, intimate knowledge of God. Most Sufis are Sunni, but some Shiite Muslims embrace Sufi principles. Some extreme Sufi mystics are considered outside Muslim orthodoxy.

-- Wahhabi. Ironically, the Wahhabis have been compared both to Unitarians and Puritans. They stress the unity of God and reject traditions not found in the Quran. The movement, focused on purifying Islam, originated in Arabia under the leadership of al-Wahhab in the 1700s. Literal interpretation of the Quran has led Wahhabis to administer the cutting off of hands as a penalty for some crimes.

-- Alawi. The Alawites generally have been considered a heretical sect within Shiite Islam, but it has moved closer to acceptance in the last 30 years. It has ties to some political leaders in Syria and its Bath party.

-- Nation of Islam. Elijah Muhammad founded this African-American movement in the 1930s. It is not regarded as orthodox by mainstream Islam. Louis Farrakhan became the Nation of Islam’s leader after the founder’s death -- particularly after Muhammad’s son, Wallace D. Muhammad, moved toward orthodox Islam.

Worldspace Satellite Radio has launched a 24-hour Urdu radio station - Falak. Named after the Urdu word for 'sky', the channel aims to showcase the vast repertoire of Urdu music.

Channel No. 109 on the Worldspace Satellite Radio Network, Falak captures the nuances of Urdu through a range of innovative programming that brings to life the romance of more than just the language. The channel revives memories of a whole tradition of impeccable style and etiquette, prose and poetry, and a rapidly vanishing set of traditional values.

Falak will now enable music lovers to go back in time and indulge in the lyrical sounds of Urdu.

Falak showcases the widest collection of Urdu music on radio in the form of ghazals, qawalis and film songs, broadcasting rare songs that are not even available in music stores today. The carefully structured programming highlights the various forms of Urdu music ranging from evocative poetry readings or Mushairas, exclusive interviews with singers and poets of a bygone era, special live recordings, trivia on historical events, celebrating the lives of legends from Urdu literature and music, sharing social messages contained in ancient Urdu literature, in addition to a host of other exclusive programming.

Sufiyana Kalaam, a special programme featuring Sufi Qawalis, Mersias, Nohas and Baints. Ghazal Usne Chhedi is based on Urdu poetry. Sham-E-Farozan will air best ghazals by renowned Urdu poets.

Radio Falak will also air the ethos of a bygone era and revel in the soothing and powerful voices of legends like Ghulam Ali, Mehdi Hassan, Iqbal Bano, Tahira Saiyad, Farida Khanam, Reshma, Abida Parveen and Nusrat Saheb.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

AJMER: Around 700 students of a school run by a Muslim body here on Thursday sang Vande Mataram to celebrate the centenary of the national song.

Students of the Khwaja Amania secondary school which is controlled by the Anjuman Committee, recited the song on Thursday morning and there were no objections raised. School Principal B. L. Sharma said that the students had practiced hard for the recital on the special occasion.

Among those who participated in the function was vice president of the Ajmer Dargah Committee Abdul Baari Chishti.

Recitals of the song were also reportedly held in other Muslim colonies of the city, which is home to the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti.

This portrait of Naguib Mahfouz is by artist Gamil Shafik, a long-standing member of the novelist's Harafish group of friends, who writes: "Naguib Mahfouz taught me love of work / love of life / taught me tolerance / taught me modesty / taught me love of the Other / taught me equanimity / taught me contentment/ taught me pride and dignity / All this I learned as I contemplated his moments of silence, wondering what was going through his mind at the Harafish gatherings, about quarter of a century ago."

The death of Naguib Mahfouz constitutes, in addition to the national and cultural loss of the towering genius of modern Arabic literature, a personal loss for me. Because I have known Naguib Mahfouz since I arrived in Cairo, in my late teens, for my university education. Even before going to attend the first lectures at my faculty, I went to Mahfouz's weekly meeting at the Opera Café in 1959.(...)Mahfouz's years at Cairo University, where he studied philosophy starting 1930, coincided with the economic crisis and the repressive years of the unstable minority governments in Egypt at the time. The university was teeming with political activities and Mahfouz was a liberal Wafdist -- the Wafd was the patriotic party of the majority at the time, working to end the British occupation of the country. But he was aware of all other political denominations at the time, particularly the Leftists and Muslim Brothers, whose exponents appear in many of his novels.

On graduating in 1934 he worked for the university, contemplated postgraduate study and even registered for a PhD in philosophy, with Sufism in Islamic philosophy as the topic of his research. His first publications were a series of philosophical essays in cultural journals, but he soon abandoned this academic endeavour and embarked on a literary career. Yet philosophical concepts and spiritual and Sufi preoccupations continued to pervade his literary work.(...)The last work Mahfouz wrote before the Muslim fundamentalists' failed attempt on his life in 1994 left him paralyzed in his right arm is Asda' Al-Sira Al-Dhatiyya (1993; English translation Echoes of An Autobiography.It is a fragmented narrative with strong sufi resonance that pushes the narrative to the limits of poetry and philosophical revelations. This is also the case with Mahfouz's last work Ahlam Fatrat Al-Naqaha.

The world of Naguib Mahfouz is a vast and extremely rich one extending from pharaonic times down to the present day. He spans the various changes in the reality, dreams and aspirations of his nation and provides an elaborate record of its attempts to come to terms with the process of modernity. Although his world is mainly Cairo and predominantly the old quarter of Gammaliyya in which he spent his childhood, he made the urban scene an elaborate and highly significant metaphor of the national condition. His narrative world is peopled with characters from all walks of Egyptian life from beggars to aristocrats, with a special place reserved for the intellectuals with whom Mahfouz identifies. On the literary plane, his career spans the whole process of development of the Arabic novel from the historical to the modernistic and lyrical. He earned the Arabic novel respect and popularity and lived to see it flourish in the work of numerous writers throughout the Arab world.

Just when you thought that the hundreds of pages of reading, weekly chemistry lab reports, lengthy econ problem sets and dreaded history oral presentations were too much for your brain (which is slowly returning from summer vacation) to handle, stop feeling sorry for yourself, because compared to some Ithaca residents, your intellectual to-do list is as mundane as the mid-day talk shows on National Public Radio.

Marcia and David Radin, co-owners and operators of the Ithaca Zen Center, a small rural Zen community which also houses the Dervish Retreat Center, have been on a continual mental quest that breeches well beyond the depths and drudgery of college academia.

“A recurring goal of ours has been to figure out how to make sense of life,” said David, “so our center was built around teaching people how to take care of their minds from a deeper perspective.”

David founded the center in 1978 as the Beech Hill Pond Meditation Center, a facility reminiscent of a Hippie community formerly stationed miles from the telephone and electrical lines that signified advancement into technology’s modern age. Since then, the center has moved twice — first to a location in downtown Ithaca, then to its current home, a 60 acre spread just eight miles south of Ithaca. “Our practice involves specific postures, reading style, all amounting to reaching a certain level of being,” he said. While its popularity has increased over the years, the Zen Center has maintained a small-community feel that lends to a daily zazen schedule at the Center and twice-weekly meditation practice at Cornell’s Annabel Taylor Hall.

All sessions are open to the public and typically vary in attendance from six to 20 people. Although there are over 20,000 students currently enrolled at Cornell, student attendance at the sessions rarely tops zero. “Most of the people who attend [the Annabel Taylor sessions] are faculty members,” said David, “students are too focused on their careers and their current situations. They are not involved in reflecting on what their being is and means.” However, their lack of attendance does not mean students are immune to the issues and dilemmas that those who practice meditation are working to sort out. “Everyone runs into reasoning why we should take care of the mind,” David said, “and while some people may turn to therapy and drugs, few work to train their minds to deal with pain spiritually.”

And spirituality, while an important aspect of meditation, is also a tenet on which the Melevi, an ancient Eastern European mystic practice, is based.

In 1983, Marcia Radin, who goes by her Turkish name Khadija, brought this esoteric branch of Sufism to no other place than Ithaca, N.Y. With its roots dating back to thirteenth century Turkey, followers of the Melevi, known as the Whirling Dervishes, still read the poetry, listen to the music and practice the famous turning dance of their spiritual father, Rumi.“Like meditation, Melevi is a centering practice. It allows you to understand a sense of self,” said Marcia. “Although some people think it is a mystical branch of Islam, is it not. Many religions, such as Christianity and Judaism, practice it, making it clear that it is not a religion, but a type of spirituality.”

As for Marcia, she does not worship a particular religion along side her practice of Melevi. The spiritual enlightenment that she obtains from whirling is above and beyond what she thinks she could reap from organized religion. “I can’t really put into words what I get out of [whirling], just like someone can’t say why they feel good after they go to church,” she said. “But the practices lead me to deep satisfaction.”

In her decision to give up religion, Marcia made a clear definitional distinction between religion and other spiritual forms. “Mysticism is all about knowing, not believing,” she said. “It never makes God an object, and I never feel I needed to believe in or turn to anything, when I could know it.” Knowing, undoubtedly, has been an important part of her spiritual development, starting from when she initially witnessed the sacred act of turning over thirty years ago.

“I first saw turning when I was a professional dancer in 1971 by the followers of Sufi Murshid Samuel Lewis in San Francisco, and it immediately entranced me,” Marcia said. “I knew it was what I wanted to do, and I have been doing it ever since.”And since the inception of her teaching career in 1978, Marcia has traveled both domestically and globally practicing, and spreading the tradition of, the Whirling Dervishes.

Her studies have brought her to, among other places, Israel, Turkey, California, Montreal, Connecticut and Pittsburgh. With a mission as advantageous as enabling all to “experience meditation, drumming, whirling and every other activity as a doorway to being present,” she will continue to challenge her students and herself as she continues on her path towards spiritual enlightenment.

Although she notes that more and more people are becoming interested in Melevi, Marcia still classifies it as being “not very popular.” And the Dervish Retreat Center, which doesn’t advertise, and attracts people strictly by word of mouth, still boasts a pool of members ranging in age from their mid-20s through 60s. “We don’t actively seek members, they find us,” she said.

This is a transcript from The World Today, a program broadcast around Australia at 12:10pm on ABC Local Radio. Africa Correspondent Zoe Daniel reports to Eleanor Hall.

ELEANOR HALL: Islamic leaders in Somalia have agreed to form a joint army and police force with the country's interim government.

The deal has been reached at peace talks between the two parties in Sudan, and although international peacekeepers were rejected by the Islamists, this deal may signify their willingness to work together to create a functioning country.

Islamic courts have taken control of the capital Mogadishu, and much of the south, while the interim government has little power and is virtually hemmed in in the town of Baidoa.

The United States has accused the Islamists of being linked to al-Qaeda, but others say they seem to have brought order to parts of Somalia for the first time in years.

ZOE DANIEL: A few days ago the Port of Mogadishu started receiving ships for the first time in 11 years.

There is still unrest, but residents of the war-torn city say they can walk the streets again after years of anarchy and violence. And now a functioning police force and army look like being formed.

The agreement has come out of talks being held in Sudan, which aim to bring peace to arguably the world's most dysfunctional country.

Leader of the Somali government delegation, Parliament speaker Sharif Hassan.

SHARIF HASSAN: We are brothers. We can achieve a lot, and we want to focus entirely on the ways and means to take Somalia out of its current debacles.

ZOE DANIEL: Somalia's interim government is based in the city of Baidoa, but it has little influence elsewhere, and it's certainly not as powerful as the Islamic courts who have taken control of Mogadishu and much of Somalia's south.

The Islamists drove out warlords who'd been ruling Mogadishu since the country's last leader was toppled in 1991.

They've been accused of being a front for al-Qaeda, but the leader of the Islamist delegation, Ibrahim Hassan Adou, says they want peace. Ethiopian troops are believed to be in the country to support the interim government, and he's warned that it's their presence that could reignite civil war.

IBRAHIM HASSAN ADOU: We would like to reaffirm our commitment to peace and good neighbourhood. We are not a threat to any of our neighbours, despite some accusations to the contrary by some of these neighbours trying to find pretext to destabilise Somalia.

ZOE DANIEL: International observers, particularly in America, have reacted negatively to the rise of the Islamists in Somalia, warning that the country could become a haven for terrorists.

The introduction of harsh Sharia courts has also fed fear that a Taliban style hardline Islamic state could be formed.

But Doctor Richard Cornwall from the Institute of Security Studies says that's not the right way to respond.

RICHARD CORNWALL: Somalis are after all not Arabs, they don't speak Arabic. Their form of Islam has generally been a fairly moderate Sufi kind of Islam, and so whether they would actually become a new Taliban, as some American extremists allege, I think is highly doubtful.

ZOE DANIEL: He says the international community risks creating extremism in Somalia by viewing the conflict simplistically as an Arab versus non Arab war, which it isn't.

RICHARD CORNWELL: Well, the problem is that if we start to look at the internal politics of Somalia through the anti-terrorist war lens, then we're going to… we're not going to see what's actually going on.

And in fact we stand a very good chance of ending up with a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that we internationalise a domestic conflict, we come in and support one group of people who are waving the anti-terrorist banner against another group of people who are not necessarily terrorists. Then the nationalist card gets played and we end up radicalising the entire conflict.

ZOE DANIEL: Somalia's interim government and leaders of the Islamic courts will meet again at the end of October to discuss a power sharing agreement. In the meantime, the two groups have agreed to co-exist peacefully, without outside interference.

An International Sufism Symposium with the title of "Sufism's Ancient Wisdom and Present Day Expressions" will be held from 14 to 16 of September 2006 in Edinburgh, Scotland with participation of Iranian and foreign scholars. This program is organized and sponsored by the International Association of Sufism (IAS), the Edinburgh Institute for Advanced Learning (EIAL), and the Edinburgh International Center for World Spiritualities (EICWS).

This event will be held at St. George's West Church in Edinburgh. The programs of this symposium include: an international gathering of Sufis with representatives of schools, orders and tariqas (Sufi orders) worldwide demonstrating the diversity within this mystical school of the Islamic traditions. Some art programs, music performance, lectures, spiritual practice, shared chanting (zikr) and discussion amongst world leaders in the Sufi tradition are the other programs of this two-day symposium.

Sufism is a mythic tradition of Islam. Sufism encompasses a diverse range of beliefs and practices. Sufism has produced a large body of poetry in Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Kurdish, Urdu, etc, which it great influence can be traced in works of some Iranian poets including Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, Farid Ud-Din Attar, and others such as Abdul Qader Bedil, Bulleh shah etc.

It is believed that the word originates from Suf, the Arabic word for wool, referring to the simple cloaks the early Muslim ascetics wore. However, not all Sufis wear cloaks or cloths of wool. Another etymological theory states that the root word of Sufi is the Arabic word Safa, means purity.

Sufism originates in the teachings of the Holy Prophet Muhammad. Some orientalist scholars believe that Sufism was essentially the result of Islam evolving in a more mystic direction.

The Sufis dispersed throughout the Middle East, particularly in the area which were previously under Byzantine influence and control. During 1200-1500 CE, Sufism experience an era of increased activity in various parts of the Islamic world. This period is considered as the Classical Period or the Golden Age of Sufism. The propagation of Sufism started from its origin in Baghdad, Iraq, and then spread to Persia, India, North Africa and Muslim Spain.

The effects of modern thoughts, science, and philosophy on Sufism and the advent of Sufism to the West can be seen in today's world as well. A number of scholars perceive influences on Sufism from pre-Islamic and non-Islamic schools of mysticism and philosophy. Some of these new perspectives originate from the synthesis of Persian civilization with Islam, an emphasis on spiritual aspects of Islam, and the incorporation of ideas and practices from other mysticisms such as Gnosticism and Hinduism into Islam.

A significant of Persian literature comes from the Sufis, who created great books of poetry, for instance Rubaiyat-e Omar Khayyam, the Conference of the Birds, and also the Masnavi Mevlana, all of which contain teachings of the Sufis.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

The Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF), now in its third year, will run from Sept. 28 to Oct. 3 in Ubud, Bali.

Themed Desa-Kala-Patra (Place-Time-Identity), the festival will feature more than 100 Indonesian and international writers in a series of discussions, book launches, writing workshops and other literary activities.

"I hope that the festival could become a springboard for Indonesian writers to meet international authors," festival director Janet de Neefe said on Wednesday.

One international author participating in UWRF 2006 is William Dalrymple, a well-known travel writer and historian who will share his story about love and romance in 18th-Century India in White Moguls.

Anita Desai (India), Shauna Singh Baldwin (Canada), Su Tong (China) and writers from Australia, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United States will also participate in the festival.

Writers from Indonesia and its ASEAN neighbors, including Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore, will also join the third edition of the annual festival.

Several writers will launch new titles and CDs during the festival, including Australian writer-performer Jan Cornall with Take Me to Paradise, Indonesian poet Sitok Srengenge with Singing Srengenge (CD of jazz poetry) and Indonesian writer-philosopher Toety Heraty with Calon Arang-Lyrical Prose.

A special highlight this year will be a tribute to the late Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who passed away April 30. Several speakers, including director John McGlynn of the Lontar Foundation, which has translated Pram's works, will talk about the multiple-Nobel nominee and internationally acknowledged Indonesian writer.

The festival also offers children's programs, such as story-telling performances, cartoon drawing and hip-hop song writing and recording workshops.

In line with current events and issues, British author Ziauddin Sardar and Algerian-born master of Sufism Sheikh Khaled Bentounes will discuss the myths and realities of one of the most misunderstood faiths in the world, Islam.

Festival director de Neefe, an Australian restaurateur and writer who has been living in Bali for 20 years, underlined that part of the festival's objectives was to counteract the damaging effects of the 2004 and 2005 bombings in Bali.

"Through the festival, we want to diminish the negativity of the tragic incidents. We plan also to invite writers of other religions, such as Hinduism and Christianity," she said.

Woman writer Ayu Utami, who is also a festival committee member, hoped that the festival could become an alternative of spiritual and cultural tourism to Bali.

"Spiritual experiences can be found in literary events, such as this festival, not only from religions," said Ayu, whose novel Saman was awarded the Prince Claus Prize in 2000.

As soon as the conversation opens, poet, playwright and translator Anju Makhija talks about Pune. Born and brought up here, Makhija’s affinity towards the city is obvious. “We travelled a lot due to my father’s profession and Pune is etched in my memory,” says she.

So, little wonder then that Makhija is excited about her trip to Pune on September 4 at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), where she along with theatre personality Tom Alter and poet Priya Sarukkai Chabria will read selections from the book Seeking The Beloved, written by 16th century Sufi poet Shah Abdul Latif, translated by Makhija and Hari Dilgir.

Taking a break from her Pune memories, Makhija talks about herself, almost matter-of-fact. “I started writing poetry in my teens and my commercial writings overtook my passion to write poems,” says she. Makhija also wrote columns for The Indian Express Mumbai in late 90s - Expressions and Media Mix.

Makhija has written eight plays so far. Some of her well-known works include Unspoken Dialogue with Alyque Padumsee and The Last Train, that was shortlisted for the BBC World Prize. “This play was recently staged in Mumbai and received a tremendous response. It is a subtle political and religious satire,” says she. Makhija has also worked with international directors, but most memorable was working with German director Michael Laub, for whome she wrote Total Slammer Masala. “The play never came to India but travelled all over Australia and Europe. I love Laub’s style. He is such an avant garde. His style is never to work on a story, but, to take up a theme and work upon that,” she adds.

After, “pushing herself” to write more poems, there was no looking back for this lover of Sufi music and writings. “Then, I decided to get my poetry book published. As a result View From The Web was born, followed by Pickling Season,” informs Makhija. Her poem with the same title (Pickling Season) also won the BBC World Prize and talks about how relations and pickles are so similar. “They both sour, they both are so much fun much as long as you preserve them in the right vessel!” she describes.

But, Makhija has a remorse. According to her, poetry is hardly anyone’s choice these days. “As a writer, you constantly need to push yourself to write and secondly, there is a niche reader of poetry,” she concedes.

And, as if on a natural instinct, she gets back to her favourite topic - Pune. “My granny stayed here. During my initial years in Pune, I was so fascinated by the way she conducted herself. I have dedicated most of my books to her,” she fondly recalls.

The Egyptian Nobel Prize winner, who died Wednesday, created narrative art "that applies to all mankind."

Naguib Mahfouz became the first Arab writer to win the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. Mahfouz, a Cairene so devoted to his tumultuous city that at 78 he'd spent exactly six days outside Egypt - three in Yugoslavia and three in Yemen - lived and wrote as a cosmopolitan who never let ideology keep him from depicting Egypt's realities and hypocrisies.

Teased about his lack of travel, he jabbed back: "All that we do as writers and philosophers is the study of human nature. And it is one, in any place."

His 1,500-page Cairo Trilogy, a multigenerational depiction of the city's middle-class from post-World War I to the early '50s, resembles the 19th-century European novel in form. He once said that it treats "the struggle between great and burdensome traditions on the one hand, and freedom in its various political and intellectual forms on the other."

But Mahfouz's works also offer orgies on Nile houseboats, corrupt officials, cynical politics, nascent feminism, covert Westernization, and a cinematic style reflective of a man who wrote about 30 film scripts and at one time directed Egypt's State Cinema Organization.

For much of his career, Mahfouz exemplified Egyptian openness to European culture, to the work of thinkers such as Darwin, Marx and Freud, while also espousing a Sufi-influenced belief in democracy.

In times of terror and disharmony, a desire to help the mind break free of all chaos resulted in the birth of Ruhaniyat, a live music festival of Sufi poetry and music. Serving as a platform for folk artists from all over the country, Ruhaniyat has been received very well by audiences in the past.

The second volume of this compilation addresses world peace and liberation of the soul through surrender to devotion.

The compilation opens with Yu Ssuhan chhadan, a form of Sufianaa Mausiqi from Kashmir. One can sense that the song address the issue of harmony immediately as Ghulam Mohammad Saz Nawaz lends his vocals to a song worded by Hindu poetess Lalleshwari Devi.

Laalu Fakir takes the listener to ancient Bengal with his Dotaara Bhajo mursheeder kodom, a simple yet beautiful folk melody. Brothers Nanak and Manak from Punjab show the skill and finesse of Punjabi folk with a soulful rendering Aa sanwal mere.

The Hyderabad gharana of music is brought to life by Iqbal Hussain in Kaise kahoon sakhi as he introduces the rich genre of Qawwali that picks up tremendous pace toward the end of the composition. Saint Kabir’s poetry is rendered in a free flowing style backed by powerful Rajasthani folk instruments as Kulcham and Jameela Bai sing his hyms with much vigour.

One of the most powerful anthems in a Qawwali mask, Deedar tere dar ka is dedicated to Khwaja Moinudden. Distinctly different from the other Qawwali on the album, this one is of a subtler yet equally energetic character.

The listener couldn’t have asked for a better way to end this wonderful compilation as Parvathy Baul strums her Ektaara, blending it beautifully with her unique voice in Tore rang dilo. One of the few remaining women to practice Baul, Parvathy’s voice is rich with skill and emotion that is bound to touch the listener with its unforced brilliance. Scoring higher than its predecessor, this compilation is sure to cut across boundaries of religion and devote itself to the true cause of spiritual and folk music.

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